Explosions
by ct2191
Summary: An explosion in the ED takes more than just the team's usual place of work for one particular person.
1. Chapter 1

As Sam slowly drifted back into the waking world the first thing she became aware of was the sound of the heart rate monitor. Its steady beeping felt like a beacon, pulling her back to the present from the very depths of what felt like a long sleep.

As she edged ever further into consciousness she recognised the sounds of people talking, though who the voices belonged to she had no idea. She also felt the softness of the warm crisp sheets and the comfort a pillow in just the right place. The comfort both pleased her and worried her, for to be this comfortable she must have been in this bed a long time, well, at least she felt like she had been.

She tried to open her eyes but something was wrong. Her eyelids felt heavy and unused, refusing to wield to the demands of her brain. Next she tried to move her feet, but again her body took no notice. Her hands were unusable also, it appeared all she could do was listen, feel and breathe.

The voices were becoming louder, and were accompanied with the clopping of shoes. Suddenly a bright light appeared over her left eye after someone moved her eyelid open. Sam let out a small moan the person appeared to jump back and her eyelid closed once more, leaving her in darkness as the yelled with a strong Liverpool accent.

"Charlie! She's awake!"

More shoes, this time it sounded as though someone was running towards her.

"Sam? Hello?" Said a man's voice. "Sam squeeze my hand if you can hear me."

Sam felt pressure on her left hand, and tried to apply pressure back. She must have been successful because seconds later the man yelled out.

"Zoe!"

Sam heard the clopping of high heels and a few seconds later there was someone else shining bright lights into her eyes. At last the spell that was preventing her from moving appeared to have broken, and she batted away the light like one might swat at a fly.

"Sam! How are you feeling?" The woman who had been shining the light into her eyes said in relieved voice.

Sam merely stared back at her with an affronted expression, before pushing herself up on the bed and staring around. She was in a hospital, on a ward. No doubt about it now. But why was another question altogether. The multiple dressings over her arms did not help explain this, nor did the turban- like bandage around her head. How had she gotten those injuries?

"Sam? Can you hear us?" Said the man, who now Sam could see was grey haired and wearing clothes that resembled dark blue pyjamas.

She nodded warily before casting over eyes over the blonde haired woman who was staring at her confusedly then shifting to look at the woman now perched on the edge of the bed at eye level with her, the stethoscope around her neck being the only indication that she was a doctor.

"Sam… what's wrong? Are you in pain?"

She slowly shook her head once more.

Sam didn't quite know what to say to these strangers who seemed so at ease in her presence. They were staring at her as though they knew her, but who they were was just one of the many mysteries surrounding her at the present.

She opened her mouth, preparing to ask every question that was buzzing around her mind, but suddenly seemed at a loss for what to say. She didn't know who these people were, why there were bandages all over her or how she had ended up in here- No reason to trust three total strangers who were gathered around her. Instead she stayed quiet and decided to listen to what they had to say.

"Could be the shock.." She heard the lady with the stethoscope mutter over her shoulder.

"Maybe… but they way she's staring at us, it's like she…" Began the male nurse.

"…like she doesn't know who we are." Finished the blonde.

The doctor snapped around and stared at Sam with a worried expression, peering into her distrustful eyes. She kept staring for several moments before opening her mouth to speak.

"Sam do you-"

"Who the hell are you people?" Sam interrupted with a look of irritancy.

"Sam what year is it?" The male nurse asked after a moment of silence.

Sam snorted. "2003 of course!"

"And how old are you?"

"20." Sam replied with a roll of her eyes. "Why are you all looking at me like that?"


	2. Chapter 2

She looked exactly the same, but there was definitely something different about the Sam Nicholls of 10 years ago. Zoe had watched every expression she had made since being called over, and she definitely seemed more defensive and, if it were actually possible, vulnerable- as if she had something to hide.

Her eyes darted around in their sockets like she was watching a tennis match, and that usual stern expression she wore at work was gone, replaced by a young and childlike frown. Despite being ten years older, she was actually starting to resemble the age her mind had wound back to.

Zoe had expected some amount of temporary memory loss, but to forget ten years was far worse than she had anticipated. She wasn't prepared for this. Neither was St James'.

It had come out of nowhere. One minute people were going about their daily lives, the next they were being thrown backwards into walls and doors as recess exploded into a ball of white hot flames. The people in recess at the time were killed instantly, and the charred remains of their bodies would prove very difficult to identify when extracted from the rubble.

The entirety of the building Holby ED was situated under had collapsed about ten minutes after the blast, leaving nearly 400 people injured or dead. Most of the ED team had made it out beforehand, dragged into the cool night air by either Dixie or another member of the ambulance crew. Most were also still conscious.

Tom had a broken arm and a concussion, Tess had taken a blow to the head and a metal rod had punctured her left lung while Lloyd's right leg had become trapped under a large pile of rubble, and due to his proximity to a crumbling building Jeff and Dixie were forced to drag him out, leaving several chunks of his leg behind. Zoe, Charlie and Linda were all fine, for they were all out of the building. Zoe had been on the site of a car crash and Linda and Charlie were trying to tempt a confused patient back into the ED, who had crossed the car park and hid in a nearby ambulance.

Sam had suffered a blow to the back of the head when she was thrown against a wall by the force of the blast and another to the crown when an IV drip stand fell on her. She had a tiny fracture to the base of her skull and another on the top of her head, neither of which pointed to severe memory loss.

Charlie and Linda had been at St James' for several hours, helping to prevent their ED from collapsing under the sheer strain of having so many patients. Zoe had arrived nearly an hour after Sam did, and immediately set to work treating the burns on her forearms and sneaking her in for an X-Ray to ensure the cracks in her skull weren't casing any issues. Luckily they didn't appear to be.

Unfortunately all the scanning facilities were now completely booked up, and so with no way to tell what was going on inside Sam's head they were forced to improvise.

"Sam when was the last time you were in a hospital?" Zoe asked, shining a torch into her eyes once again.

"About 10 months ago for work experience." She replied, swatting the torch away. "What's going on? I have a paper due in a few days; I need to get back to Uni!"

Zoe, Linda and Charlie all exchanged glances. Charlie gave Zoe a brief nod and she began to speak.

"Sam… It's not 2003. Its 2013."

Sam stared at all three of them for a long while, taking in every detail of each of their faces. As Zoe watched her expression seemed to take on the barest hint of humour, before she suddenly burst out laughing. It was a bizarre sight, for her laugh wasn't at all like it normally sounds, it was full of hiccups and snorts and her hand was on her forehead.

"What are you three on exactly?" She said through several giggles.

"Sam…look." Charlie said, before walking away and grabbing a paper with the day's date off of the reception desk.

She stared at the date for a long while, before moving her eyes over the various headlines. Her smile slowly started to fade away until a grim frown was left in its place. With another snort she threw the paper onto the floor and rested her head back against the pillow.

"This has got to be some sort of sick joke." She muttered while staring up at the ceiling.

"No joke." Zoe said, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Sam you're a doctor, you work-worked- at Holby City Emergency Department and before that you were an army medic in Afghanistan."

Sam shrugged her hand off and stared at her angrily. "Army Medic? No way in hell!"

"Why?" Linda asked gently as she leaned forwards with her arms crossed.

Sam moved her gaze off Zoe glared at her feet like they had just insulted her mother, making it clear she wasn't going to answer. Zoe raised an eyebrow.

_So, _she thought to herself, _this is Sam before the army. _

"Well hopefully you'll remember for yourself soon. This memory loss should only be temporary." Zoe said flatly.

Sam merely rolled her eyes and stared at the ceiling once more. Zoe sighed and glanced over her shoulder at Linda and Charlie, who wore the exact expression she did: dumfounded.

"Would you prefer to be on your own?" Zoe asked as gently as she could.

"Yes." Sam replied sharply, "And close the curtains."

Zoe and Charlie stepped aside and Linda pulled the Curtains around her with a gentle hiss. Zoe then motioned them both to follow her to the reception desk, where a nurse was feverishly typing on a computer.

"Can you please get Samantha Nicholls on the list for an MRI?" Zoe asked after tapping her nails on the desk.

"There really isn't much point. I'm sure you're already aware that-"

"That all scans are booked up for the next 2 days? Yes, I am, but this is a priority. She just woke up with ten years of memory missing."

The nurse looked from Zoe's irritated expression to Linda and Charlie's worried ones before speaking again.

"I'll… I'll do my best to get her in today."

…

_**I'm not exactly happy with this chapter... but it'll have to do since I'm typing with one hand. That's what I get for nearly falling flat on my face. -.-**_


	3. Chapter 3

No way. There was absolutely no way Sam would choose to have anything to do with the army.

Her head was reeling. Sure she wanted to be a doctor, but an army medic? Impossible. Not after how the army had destroyed her family in the past. She wouldn't do that to her mother, or her brother.

She thought of asking to see them, but though in her head it had been a matter of days since she last spoke to her mother and brother, it could have been significantly longer if ten years had gone by. With a jolt she realized that she had no idea if she had spoken to the people that she felt like she had spoken to just yesterday in years. Her life was totally different.

It had been around three hours since Sam had woken into what felt like a horrible dream. She was grateful that no one had come to disturb her. More than once she had picked the newspaper off of the floor and flicked through it, noticing names such as 'Obama' and 'Taylor swift' before chucking it away again. Looking at what she perceived to be the future gave her a headache.

Sam spent the best part of another hour mulling over everything the doctor and the 2 nurses had told her, before suddenly the curtains hissed backwards and the doctor woman put the bars up on the bed.

"What's going on?" Sam asked, unable to keep the worry out of her voice.

"We're sending you for a scan." The grey haired nurse replied.

Sam decided it was best not to argue, and so settled for resting her head on the pillow and staring at the strip lighting that passed overhead. It was when she heard the sound of lift doors opening she finally faced forwards.

"Wait!" She almost shouted, reaching across and grabbing the doorway.

"Sam what's wrong?"

"I.. I don't like lifts." She said in a voice that was barely audible.

"What?"

"I said I don't like lifts!"

"We'll be in there 30 seconds- tops." The doctor said, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

Sam gave a small nod and let go, allowing them to wheel her into the oversized lift. As soon as the doors slid shut her heart rate began to increase, causing the doctor and nurse to look at the monitor with alarm.

"Sam try and take some deep breaths, we're nearly th-"

The lift suddenly juddered before lurching to halt. The overhead lights flickered and died and for a moment only the sound of the heart rate monitor broke the silence. That was until Sam turned around and said:

"We're a bit past 30 seconds."

…

"…yes, yes Samantha Nicholls. She's suffered a head injury and doesn't remember the last ten years… yes I'm hoping her army file may jog her memory. You can email it to me right away? Yes that would be brilliant, thank you! Ok, bye."

Linda hung up the phone with a satisfied smile. Maybe looking at Sam's army file would help her remember. She was about to open the file she had been sent when her phone started vibrating.

"Hello?"

"Linda get maintenance on the lifts now!"

…

Half an hour later, and after several breathing exercises that would normally be reserved for a pregnant woman, Sam, Zoe and Charlie were released from the confinements of the lift and back on the floor they started on. Sam looked dishevelled, with sweat sticking her hair to her forehead and her eyes wide.

Of course by now Sam's scan place had been filled and they were forced to take her back to the ward much, as everyone on the ward could see, to Zoe's displeasure.

As soon as Sam was back in a cubicle Zoe immediately fixed an oxygen mask over her mouth and nose and asked her to lean back. When her heart rate had finally returned to normal the mask was removed, which left Sam free to reluctantly answer her questions.

"You must've been in well over a hundred lifts since you came to work here... What happened? "

Sam looked up at her, clearly surprised. "I actually got over my fear of lifts? Hmm."

"You have a phobia of lifts?"

"I was trapped in one when I was 6 with my brother, ended up having a panic attack."

"I wasn't aware you had a brother."

Sam frowned. "I never mentioned him?"

"Not as far as I can remember." Zoe replied.

"Weird…" Sam muttered.

"We'll leave you to get some rest. A nurse will be around to check on your vitals soon." Zoe said with a confused smile.

"And while we're gone have a look through these." Linda added, handing Sam several sheets of paper stapled together in a booklet fashion.

Sam probably would have at least glanced at the papers if she wasn't so distracted by the fact that she hadn't, not once, mentioned her brother. He was her best friend and had been for a very long time. Why wouldn't she have mentioned him?

…

_**I'll try and keep these updates as regular as I can but in just over a month I have my AS level exams so I'm going to have a big distraction from here on out. **_

_**Thanks a lot for reading and following, I'm surprised at how many of you have started to follow after only a couple of chapters! **_


	4. Chapter 4

Never mind the ED, the entire hospital was a wreck. Nothing but a pile of rubble remained.

If you were part of the crowd of spectators and news teams, which were camped out at the end of the car park, you may just see a giant pile of bricks and a few shattered panes of glass glinting in the watery sunlight. But if you were part of the rescue operation or members of the army trying to ascertain the exact location of the blast by climbing onto the pile of rubble, things may look a little different to you.

That giant mound of bricks and glass is transformed into wallpaper, desks, computers, needles, sparking wires and an array of hospital equipment. But worst of all every now and then you come across a human hand or foot, covered in blood and/or with fingers and toes missing. If you're Jeff the paramedic you find yourself clambering around with your wife on the rubble, praying that the next person you dig up isn't someone you know, and then when they are not you help excavate them from whatever predicament they find themselves in, hating yourself for wishing death on someone else.

"Got another one over here, Dix." Jeff called out to his partner in crime as he stared at a crumpled hand.

Dixie quickly moved to his side and sighed. "Pulse?"

Jeff slowly shook his head as he felt the limp wrist for any sign of life. Dixie sighed once more before signalling to the fire department that there was another dead body. They had developed two different signals, one of anything live and another for anyone dead. So far they had uncovered three live people, 2 of which died in the ambulance on the way to St James, the last in critical condition.

"Wait…" Jeff muttered with his fingers still clamped around the wrist. "They still have a pulse! It's extremely weak, but it's there!"

Dixie quickly signalled over to the fireman once more, and they suddenly went for somewhat lethargically getting ready to dig their hundredth or so dead body to rushing around like maniacs, gathering shovels and ropes.

In a matter of minutes the limp form was pulled from the wreckage and laid on flat ground nearby. The second Jeff got a good look at him he froze.

"Dix! It's Jamie!" He said as he set to work on his injured colleague.

Around 20 minutes later Jamie was lying on a hospital bed in St James with Zoe shoving the ED doctor out of the way and nodding as Dixie read out his obs.

".. He briefly K'od on route but we were able to revive him in under a minute."

"Ok thanks Dixie. You! Get a line in and I was a full set of bloods." Zoe barked at a nearby nurse as she tested every one of the Jamie's ribs. "He needs a full body X-ray."

"But all scans are-" Began another nurse.

"Yes, yes I know. They are all booked up for 2 days. This is a priority. You better tell them that they better start pushing the queue back or I swear they'll be lucky to get as job cleaning windows in a hospital when this is all over!"

"Y-yes Dr."

"It's Dr Hanna!"

"Right, sorry Dr Hanna!" The flustered nurse said as she hurried to a nearby phone.

"Zoe, is he gonna live?" Jeff asked, watching Jamie's pale face for any sign on life.

"I don't know Jeff. We'll know more once the tests have come back and I've made a full assessment of his injuries." Zoe said gently, a stark contrast to her previous tone. "For now... Just get back there. I don't want some stranger finding another member of my ED. Robyn and Aoife are still unaccounted for."

Jeff switched back in a paramedic mode, his glassy eyes focussed and he gave stiff nod. "Right. Just promise me one thing."

"What?"

"Promise me you'll save him." Jeff pleaded, his paramedic demeanour slipping once more.

"I'll do my best, Jeff."

"Then I know he'll make it."

Jeff gave Zoe a brief smile before walking out of the ED with Dixie in tow.

"You sure you're up for this mate?" Dixie asked, placing a hand on his shoulder.

Jeff paused by St James' ED doors, looking around at the fifty or so live people they had already bought in with cuts on the faces and broken wrists.

"Come on." He said stubbornly, ignoring her question. "We have a job to do."

…

_**The next chapter will be back to focussing on Sam, I just thought it was a little weird talking about an entire building collapsing and only having four characters from the ED in the story. **_

_**Thanks for reading and I appreciate your reviews as always :)**_


	5. Chapter 5

As soon as Sam opened the file an entire world opened up to her, but it was one she didn't recognise. She stared at the photo of her in an army uniform with a look of disgust. As she started reading she noticed there was a multitude of names. These names were of the people she had served with…In Afghanistan.

"Great…" She muttered under her breath.

There was no way her mum would be speaking to her now. Why did she agree to go to the same country her father had died in several years previously? There must have been some reason; just like there had to be a reason she'd never told anyone about her brother. But what was it?

She flicked through several pages and was greeted with photos and several medical reports, one of which stated she had a cut above her left eye but other than that she was given a clean bill of health every time until she left..with an honourable discharge.

Honourable? So not only had she joined the army, but she'd also played by their rules for years on end? It was the she came to a page she hadn't been inspecting.

It was documentation for a hearing after she had shot a man whom she thought was armed, when it turned out all he was getting was his inhaler. As she read through her statement her blood started to run cold.

She had killed a man.

Her face suddenly lost all the colour it had gained since the explosion and her lips went dry. It was this face that greeted Linda when she walked over with a look of concern.

"Sam are you ok?" She asked, looking over at the heart rate monitor for any issues.

"I…I killed a man?" She said in disbelief.

Linda sighed and Sam looked up at her. "You were under a lot of pressure and you thought he had a gun, it wasn't your fault."

"How do you know about that? Did you look through here?" Sam demanded as anger suddenly crept up on her.

"No. The person I spoke to so I could get hold of this file asked if it would be wise to leave out the pages that documented that incident. I figured you'd want to know everything." Linda replied gently.

"You figured I'd want to know that I killed someone?" Sam growled. "Where's that doctor woman?"

"Dr Hanna? She's down in the ED treating one of our colleagues."

"_Your _colleagues. One of your colleagues." Sam snapped.

"Sam-"

"Can you please just leave me alone? I need time to process this."

Linda sighed again and nodded, leaving Sam to her thoughts.

Two hours later Linda was still on the ward, glancing over at Sam every few minutes in the hope that she would look back with that same confident authoritative air she normally did. Linda was disappointed.

Sam had called for assistance, and rolled her eyes when she saw Linda walking towards her.

"Are you ok?"

Sam folded her arms and warned Linda with a glance not to walk about the army.

"I need the toilet."

"I'll take you."

"Just tell me where it is." Sam snapped.

"I can't let a patient who had just suffered a head trauma go unaccompanied anywhere, sorry." Linda said with a small smile.

Sam groaned loudly and swung her legs off of the bed. Linda grabbed a nearby wheelchair and motioned Sam to sit, and could have sworn for a second that Sam was going to slap her. Their journey down the corridor was deliberately slow, with Linda slowing further near every sign, hoping that Sam may remember something.

Sam seemed aware of what she was doing and unbeknownst to Linda had rolled her eyes every time they had slowed further still. She had rolled her eyes further when they had stopped altogether, mere metres from the toilets.

When she had finished rolling her eyes her gaze settled on the same person that Linda was currently staring at. He looked to be about 6ft 2 inches tall, possibly taller. His arm was in a sling and he had a small dressing above his left eye.

"Tom!" Linda smiled, wheeling Sam over to him.

"Hey Linda. Hey, Sam." Tom smiled. "How's your head?"

Sam merely rolled her eyes, stood up and walked into the toilets.

"She's lost around ten years of memory." Linda explained, noticing Tom's affronted expression.

Tom stared at the wheel chair she recently vacated, his mouth wide open.

"Do you know if it's temporary or not?" He said as he at last looked away from the chair.

"Zoe seems to think that its only temporary, but we haven't been able to get her scanned, so who knows?"

With that Tom started rushed down the corridor, much to Linda's bemusement.

"Tom? Where are you going?!"

"To find out what Zoe knows!" He shouted back.

Linda sighed dramatically and shook her head before pushing the toilet door open with the wheelchair and walking in.

"Sam, are you ready to go back yet?"

"You could have waited outside and kept on talking to that boy toy. I'm not 4 years old."

…

_**I can't decide between turning this into tom/Sam fanfic or keeping romance out of it altogether so I figured I'd leave it up to you guys. I'll go with whatever the majority of you say. **_

_**Thanks for reading! :) **_


	6. Chapter 6

"There has to be something we can do other than wait!" Tom almost shouted in the middle of the packed ED.

"Tom I'm sorry but I have four other patients down here, all of which are in critical condition, who need my help right now! I'll get back to Sam when I can!" Zoe shouted back over the din.

Tom had spent the last 30 minutes getting every last piece of information from Zoe about Sam's condition. He had so far gleamed nothing that could explain ten years of memory loss, and nor was he expecting to without a scan. He had tried to persuade Zoe to let him take over her care but, as Zoe had pointed out, he was a patient here also and his broken arm would only get in the way.

Instead he had resigned to watching Zoe rush off to deal with a crashing patient before heading off himself, back to Sam's ward. Part of him had wanted to stick with Linda and Sam when he met them outside the toilets, the other part of him wanted to run away screaming.

She didn't know him, and that was the worst feeling ever. She was holding a facial expression you might expect to see on a moody teenager outside the toilets which, by all accounts, Sam was only a couple of years out of that particular stage in her head.

He wasn't sure what to expect from her, would her speech be the same as her body language? Would she tell him to get knotted? By what Zoe had told him this was very possible. Still, he had to try.

As he neared the ward she was in he paused for a moment to take a deep breath. Nerves. Tom frowned. Not like him to get nervous.

He walked towards the reception desk with a sense of purpose, indicating to Linda that he wanted to talk. She gave him a brief smile and came over to where he was standing eyeing his arm.

"How bad is the break?" She asked with a look of concern.

"Not as bad as it could have been. I'll have this off in a few weeks." Tom smiled as he pointed at the cast. His smile faded slightly as he looked over at Sam's bed. "How is she?"

"Not great." Linda replied, following his gaze.

Sam was sitting with her arms folded again, staring at the ceiling with a look of annoyance.

"Mind if I go talk to her?" Tom asked, still staring at her.

"Did you talk to Zoe?" Linda asked back, ignoring his question entirely.

"Yeah. She said there isn't really anything she can do right now, she's tied up with other cases. So can I go and see her?"

"Yes…" Linda said slowly. "But Tom... she's acting like a moody teenager. And she called you a... boy toy."

Tom raised his eyebrows and quickly suppressed with fits of giggles that were threatening to erupt from him.

"I've been called far worse by moody seven year olds. Kids or, well, adults who have lost ten years of memory and think they are kids, are my speciality." Tom said with another smile.

Linda sighed and nodded, walking back over to reception to sort a pile of papers.

Tom approached her bed slowly as despite the seemingly confident smile he gave Linda he was back to dealing with nerves fluttering around his stomach. He was still stuck on the fact that she wasn't going to recognise him.

"Sam?"

She looked away from the spot on the ceiling and gave him a flirty grin. "Hi boy toy."

Tom frowned. Linda wasn't joking. "Er… Hi. My name's Tom."

Tom cringed at the sound of him introducing himself to an old colleague and friend. It sounded wrong. Sam appeared to miss this momentary tightness around his jaw line.

"Cute name." She said as she sat up. "You have a girlfriend?"

"Er.. no… Let's focus on-"

"If you don't have a girlfriend you have _got _to be gay. You are way too hot to be single."

"No, I'm not gay." Tom said firmly. "Sam, can we please focus on you-"

"So, what you doing in... oh I don't know. A few weeks from now? I have no clue when I'm getting out of here but I would love to go with you for a drink sometime."

"We... Er... We already tried that." He said at last, trying to blink away the pink tinge he knew had appeared on his face.

"We already tried what? …oh." Sam said as her smile dropped. "I already know you, don't I?"

Tom wished her never opened his mouth. She suddenly went from flirting to staring at him as though she had never seen him before… again.

"Yes." Tom said after a brief pause. "We're colleagues."

Sam's face suddenly dropped a mile as she laid back on the pillow and returned to staring at the same patch of ceiling. Tom felt disheartened, but he wasn't going to give up there. He was about to open his mouth but Sam beat him to it.

"How could you?"

"How could I what?"

"How could you and them- all of my 'colleagues' let me save people's lives when I shot a man dead in Afghanistan?

Tom sighed. Zoe had warned him about this, Linda had told her the reaction Sam had after discovering the documentation.

"Sam you thought he had a gun. You were cleared of any wrongdoing and you're a good doctor. One of the best." Tom replied with a small, and hopefully reassuring, smile.

"If I'm one of the best why didn't I see that what he had was an inhaler and not a gun?" Sam said stonily.

"Because it was in his pocket. According to Zoe the file said he looked like he was getting some kind of weapon, it could have been a gun or worse, a bomb. Sam you're a good person. Don't doubt that."

"Good people don't kill others." Sam said stonily before turning onto her side and pretending to being falling asleep.

…

_**So nine of you wanted a Tom/Sam relationship (I can't stand the portmanteau Tam) and one of you wanted a Dylan/Sam relationship. I... think it's clear what I'm going to be doing then! Sorry to the guest who wanted Dylan/Sam! **_

_**A few of you want this to be more about Sam's journey of self discovery and want the romance to be a secondary plotline so I'll be taking that into consideration as well. **_

_**And to the guest who wrote that I should write what I'm comfortable with honestly I am a little lukewarm about Tom and Sam but I could already see a relationship between those 2 panning out when I started this story and I don't mind writing about them. And thanks a lot for the compliment! :)**_

_**I also saw the reviews about not making it too soppy… honestly I'm not a fan of wishy washy lovey dovy stuff so that shouldn't be too hard! That and I don't really see Sam as a particularly soppy character…So the flirty stuff I put in this chapter is going to be phased out as the story progresses and as Sam gets her memory back so she'll start to act more like her old self soon. **_

_**Thanks a lot as always for reading and reviewing! **_


	7. Chapter 7

Sam could feel him staring at her back. He hadn't moved in over an hour, though she did hear the screeching of chair legs some time ago and the occasional rustling of a newspaper. When she turned around she was greeted by the site of this Tom person balancing a newspaper on his knee while he turned the pages with his good arm.

"Why are you still here?" She said in a whiny voice as she shifted into a more comfortable position.

"Because we need to talk." Tom replied without looking up from his newspaper.

"We already did."

"I said we need to talk, not you need to talk at me." Tom clarified, looking up at her.

Sam frowned. His expression was unreadable. She was never very good at telling what people were thinking, but this guy was worst than most people she's come across. Normally she would get some kind of inkling, but there was not a sign on his face that led Sam to a conclusion about his thoughts.

"Get up." Tom said as he cast the newspaper on the seat as he stood.

"Where are we going?" Sam asked, swinging her legs off of the bed. Any excuse to get off these hospital beds, even if it was with a mysterious doctor, was an opportunity she was going to take.

"You'll see." Tom said, wheeling a nearby wheelchair over to her.

Sam rolled her eyes.

"I can walk, you know."

"I know that, and you know that, but I'm under strict instructions from Dr Hanna. Now get in." Tom said, nodding his head towards the seat of the chair. "Or you may as well get back in that bed."

Sam stood up and got in the chair, making a show of how displeased she was. She swung her arms and sat down with considerable force, before leaning back in the chair and placing a hand on the arm. When Tom didn't move she looked up at him impatiently.

"Are we moving this side of Christmas?"

"Not with you sitting like that, we're not." Tom replied, raising his eyebrows.

"Fine." Sam grumbled, straightening her back and placing her hands on her lap. "Better?"

"Physically, yes." Tom replied before setting off down the corridor.

Sam thought about asking what he meant by that, but it was obvious. Even she knew she was acting like a brat. That and the fact she had ten years of memories still missing.

They passed by several doors with long queues stretching from them, and though Sam couldn't see the name on the door she assumed these roomed contained the sought after scanners that were dotted around the hospital.

Luckily Tom didn't take her in any lifts, though she did whizz by a few and cringed at every one. They stopped near some double doors that led out onto a balcony which looked over the vast car park.

It was the middle of summer, and even in the evening there was no need for a jacket for it was easily above 20 degrees Celsius. Tom parked her as close to the metal fencing that ran around them as he could without bashing her knees. She placed her hand on the metal and looked out over the car park at the many fluorescent vehicles that she assumed to be ambulances.

"They look different." She commented, staring at the tiny men and women, also in fluorescent colours, who were bringing patients strapped to beds into the hospital.

"I suppose they do. If I remember rightly they were white back then." Tom replied, following her gaze.

"Yeah… back then." Sam repeated as her face fell.

"Do you know what made you want to become a doctor?" Tom asked casually.

"I think... I probably wanted to follow in my mother's footsteps. She was a nurse a long time ago… then again a long time ago ten years ago is nearly ancient now." Sam said with a slight smile.

"I guess it is."

"There is no way in hell I would become an army doctor." Sam said flatly.

"But... You did. Why not?" Tom asked, making Sam's frown deepen.

"I… My father was a solder. He died." Sam said, washing as much emotion as she could out of her voice.

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah." Sam muttered as she pretended to be fascinated with a particular building in the distance. "My mother made me and my brother both swear that we wouldn't tread in the footsteps of him. She was never really the same after he died."

"How do you mean?"

"She... Was depressed…and…" Sam said slowly, her brow furrowed.

"Sam?"

Something was wrong. Very wrong. She could see images of a frail woman flashing through her mind, a woman the resembled her mother but couldn't be. Her skin was a pasty yellow colour, and it was stretched over her once beautiful face. Sam could feel her frail hand in her own, so weak it felt as though it could snap at the slightest touch.

The heart rate monitor was beeping at a slower and slower rate until the point where the frail woman let go of Sam's hand entirely and flat lined.

"She had liver cancer. She died seven years ago." Sam said in a voice that was barely above a whisper.

"_Seven _years ago?"

…

_**I love how three of you are now saying this would be better as a Sam/Dylan story… Sorry guys but I can't please everyone! **_

_**Thanks a lot for continuing to read Explosions!**_

_**I will try an update again in the next couple of days and I am updating Haunted tomorrow morning with its second to last chapter. **_


	8. Chapter 8:

"Ok on 3. 1,2,3!" Zoe commanded as the ED team shifted her fiftieth patient onto the bed.

The man looked barely older than 20, and had a large open wound on his leg and a gash on his chest. Zoe leant in close and listened ot his breathing.

"OK it doesn't sound like a sucking chest wound. You've been very lucky." She said to the man who was white as a sheet.

"Doesn't exactly feel that way at the moment." He replied, grunting through the pain in his leg.

Zoe leant down and examined it. He had missed the artery altogether but the cut still ran down to the bone.

"We're going to need someone from plastics up here." She said, frowning at the deep cut.

"There's no one available." The nurse replied 30 seconds later.

"Well make someone available!" Zoe snapped at her.

"Zoe!" Called a familiar voice from the ED doors.

"Tom I really don't have time-"

"Sam's remembered something!"

Zoe gave the patient file to another doctor and ran to the doorway.

…

"Enough with the lights in my eyes!" Moaned Sam as Zoe attempted to examine her back on the ward.

Tom had bought Sam back onto the ward before going to fetch Zoe, much to her displeasure. She would much prefer to stay where there was fresh air, instead of air that made you cringe as you inhaled that hospital smell along with it.

"How long ago was the thing you remembered?" Zoe asked, giving up with her examination.

"About seven years ago. My mother died." Sam replied with a slight shudder.

"Seven years ago from now or seven years ago from when you were twenty?"

"From now."

"And you're sure?"

"_Yes." _Sam replied with a roll of her eyes.

"Well I'm no neurologist and every single one of them here is booked up to the high heavens so we're no closer to finding out what's going on inside your head…"

"But?" Sam asked, sensing what was coming.

"If I was to hazard a guess I'd say that it appears to memory returns to you through triggers. What were you doing when this came back?"

"Looking at ambulances from the balcony…" Sam said, slowly before adding. "We travelled around in them a lot when my mother was sick… she had cancer."

"I'm sorry." Zoe said, looking down slightly.

"I still don't remember where my brother is though…"

Tom, who had remained quiet up until now, cleared his throat.

"Maybe we can find a way to trigger those memories as well." He offered.

"How?" Sam asked.

"Can you remember what kind of job he did?"

Sam thought for a moment. He older than her my four years, and, according to her drastically shortened memory, he was working in a marketing company. When Sam told Tom this, he frowned.

"Can you remember the name?"

"No, he never told me."

"Well I have patients to see and it looks like you two are onto something here. I'll check on you again in a few hours." Zoe said, making her way off of the ward.

Tom was still thinking. Sam could tell by the frown lines across his face. She thought it best to remain quiet for a moment, for she was unsure of what he was going to say.

"Maybe I can find a laptop and we can search around for things that may jog your memory." Tom suggested with a small smile.

"Or…" Sam said slowly.

"What?"

"You could take me down to the ED and see if that brings back anything."

"Maybe later. Its chaos down there at the moment." Tom replied. "I'll go find a laptop."

Sam sighed and rested her head on the pillow after watching him go. She was trying not to freak out at the fact that not only had she killed a man but her mother was dead, and she had no idea where or who her brother was.

She had a feeling no one was questioning sudden calmness because this was how the Sam Nicholls they knew and love would behave in that situation, and she presumed that probably had something to do with years of training at the army. What kind of person did she become in the last ten years?

Clearly someone who didn't like to talk about her life. Is that how she dealt with her mother's death? Rebelling against her by joining the army and refusing to talk about her personal life?


	9. Chapter 9

"What about that?"

"No… That's seriously a building?"

"Yes. That?"

"I don't even know what that is…"

"It's called Facebook."

"Face... What?"

"It's a social networking site."

"What's that in English?"

Sam swore she heard him laughing even though not a sound escaped his lips.

"It's a website that people create profiles on and communicate with each other… and a lot of other stuff. Look, here is yours."

Sam stared at the profile picture of her attempting a half smile and snorted. She also stared at the man that stood beside her and frowned. He looked awfully familiar, if you took away the beard.

"Why is Dylan Keogh there?" She asked, irritated.

"Er... Well… It looks like you haven't updated this in a while." Tom said, trying to take the laptop from her.

"Who is he to me?" Sam demanded, grabbing it back and continuing to stare at the photo.

"Well…"

"Tell me or I'll use the karate skills I have on you!"

"Wait, you took karate lessons? I didn't know that…"

"You're deflecting."

"You sound like a psychiatrist."

"Tom!"

"Fine, Fine. He _was_ your husband."

Sam stared at Tom though he had just gone mad.

Husband. First of all, she got married. Second of all it was to one of the most obnoxious people she had ever met in her entire life. Great.

"You have got to be kidding me." She said at last with a frown.

"How do you know him?" Tom asked. "I didn't have you too down as childhood sweethearts,"

"We met when we both started uni about 2 years ago- sorry- _12 _years ago. He had no friends and pushed everyone away who ever tried to get to know him. Made a complete ass of himself with all his paranoia and crazy theories. " Sam replied frowning. "You're serious I married that freak?"

"Yeah…" Tom said, narrowing his eyes.

"And you're also sure this is the first time I've had any kind of mental problem?" Sam asked, staring at the picture.

Tom stifled a laugh.

"Yes. We're sure. Thanks to your army days you've had a lot more checkups than most people."

Sam snorted before muttering, "Well I'm glad they were useful for something."

"I didn't mean to bring that up... sorry."

"It's fine." Sam replied flatly. "How long ago did me and _Dylan _get divorced?"

"About a year ago now I guess." Tom replied after thinking it through for a moment. "You both arrived here at different times, and you were already getting a divorce when you arrived."

"What was I thinking?" Sam moaned, wrapping her knuckles on her bandaged forehead.

To this Tom had no answer, instead grabbing the laptop from her and closing the lid.

"I think you've had enough for now." He said with a small smile.

Sam nodded. _Yes. _She thought, _that's enough scary truths for one day. _

A few minutes later Tom returned and sat down beside the bed.

"Can we please go and get some air?" Sam moaned, punching her pillow.

"Sam its 9pm. It's probably best you just get some sleep." Tom replied with a yawn.

Sam raised an eyebrow. "I think you should take your own advice."

"Maybe you're right." He said through the end of his yawn. "I'll check back with you in the morning."

"Where are you going to sleep?"

"On my ward… they'll probably be wondering where I am." He replied with a grimace. "Goodnight."

"Goognight." Sam replied before frowning. "Oh, and Tom?"

"Yeah?"

"I never learned karate."

Tom rolled his eyes in mock annoyance before giving her a small smile and continuing on his way.

…

Sam waited until the lights went out before sliding her legs off of the bed. She stood slowly, hoping the bed wouldn't make so much of a creaking sound if she did. It didn't work. Luckily there were no nurses around to notice.

She headed towards the end of the ward as quickly as she could, keeping one eye trained on the other patients as all times in case one woke up and shouted for a nurse. Luckily that didn't happen.

When she reached the lift she assumed it was some subconscious habit which caused her to reach for the button, but she soon checked herself and headed for the stairs. She headed down the four flights quickly, stumbling a little as she followed the green signs which led her to her destination.

Once on the ground floor she quickly headed down a corridor, still following the signs, and ducked behind every trash can or pillar, avoiding nurses like the plaque. When she finally reached her destination she stared around, shocked at the chaos as soon as she quietly pushed open one of the doors.

"So…." She muttered as she followed Dr Hanna's path through the chaos of the ED.

It was then a sound caught her attention.

The doctor in her awoke. Someone was in cardiac arrest close by and no one was going to help them.

Sam slipped into the cubicle after shouting for help and started chest compressions.

Zoe entered, her mouth hung open.

"Are you just going to gawp or are you going to help me?" Sam shouted at her.

…

_**This will have to be the last update until next weekend as I'm back to school this week :(**_

_**No doubt the workload will be piled on since there is less than a month until our exams… I may not be able to update regularly until after the 22/23**__**rd**__** of May. **_


	10. Chapter 10

Zoe's eyes weren't working properly. There was no way Sam was standing over a patient doing chest compressions while nurses looked to her for instructions about what to do next. She blinked rapidly several times. Sam didn't disappear.

Words failed her as she watched Sam ordering nurses around just as she did on any normal working day. She was barking commands in the sharp fashion as she had always done for as long as Zoe had known her, and the nurses followed them without complaint or objection to the fact they were being ordered around by a patient. Several glanced at Zoe's shocked expression and shook their heads.

The steady beat from the heart rate monitor after they managed to save the patient's life shook the life back into Zoe, and she found herself thinking as she spoke.

"What the hell?"

…

"Like I told you… I don't know what happened! It was like an instinct took over or something!" Sam said exasperatedly.

If a wheelchair hadn't been on hand Zoe looked like she would have dragged Sam back to the confinements of the ward by her ear. She was less than pleased when Sam politely reminded her that she still had a fear of lifts, and had to walk up the stairs. The expression on her face didn't lighten in the coming half an hour where she proceeded to grill Sam like a police officer might a criminal.

"Do you remember anything about actually _being _a doctor?" Linda asked, standing slightly away from a stressed looking Zoe.

"No. But now I have a whole load of knowledge in my head about MRIs and broken bones." Sam replied, grateful for the distraction from Zoe's face.

"You should have called someone over!" Zoe repeated for the third time. "Not started chest compressions yourself! You're a patient here!"

"Zoe for the last time he was _your _patient! By the time you would have heard the sound the heart rate monitor was making over the din down there he would have been dead!" Sam countered.

Zoe opened her mouth, about to shout back when Charlie rushed over and held up his hands.

"That's _enough_! It's 3am and you two are waking up everyone else on this ward. Zoe, I'm barring you from here until sunrise." Charlie said sternly.

Zoe rounded on him. "_You _are barring _me_?" She repeated. "Do I have to remind you that I am your boss?"

"No here you're not." Charlie replied. "They've put me in charge of this ward because everyone else is downstairs in the ED trying to keep everything afloat. You being up here isn't helping. If anything you should be _thanking _Sam. She saved your patient's life."

…

"What have you got?" Jeff called over to the bomb squad.

It had been several hours since they had found another person in the rubble so he and Dixie had settled in the ambulance on the explosion site waiting to find out what the cause of the explosion was. The army's bomb squad had been called in hours ago, and went about analysing every tiny part of the debris that surrounded them; they were looking for the centre of the blast.

"This blast wasn't caused by a bomb." One of them replied.

They were all wearing bullet proof jackets and blast proof helmets, along with black boots and a camouflage colour uniform.

"What caused it then?" Dixie asked, jumping out of the back of the ambulance.

"It looks like it was a pressurized container of some kind. Maybe an oxygen cylinder."

"Oh no." Jeff mumbled.

"What?" Dixie asked, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"You remember that guy we bought in… mark or whatever his name was. He was a heavy smoker who had end stage lung cancer. I bought him in a few times before… he's a chain smoker. Tried lighting up in the ambulance a few times and I warned him that was dangerous around the oxygen cylinder we were using to try and get some useful air into his lungs with."

"But one cigarette... surely that wouldn't be big enough. This explosion destroyed half the hospital!"

"No." Agreed one of the bomb squad, walking over. "_One _cigarette certainly wouldn't be enough. But you said he was a chain smoker? Ten or eleven would be."

…

Sam tried to sleep for the remaining four hours until the lights came back on, but something in her head wasn't letting her.

She could see images of herself running through the ED doors towards what she assumed was recess, chasing after another man wearing scrubs but had a lab coat on over the top of them. She was yelling something, something she couldn't quite remember.

She could feel how scared she was through the memory and the tension on her limbs. As soon as he reached the ED doors she turned tail and ran back the other way screaming at everyone nearby to run away too.

It was then the blast carried her into a wall and she passed out.

Sam sat up, sweat pouring down her face. What could this mean?"

…

_**I'm probably going to have to limit my updates to once a week… I got even more work than I expected. If you have any questions I'll try and get back to you ASAP... But right now my teachers have gone a little crazy with the mountains of work they are setting. **_


	11. Chapter 11

Tom had an easier time getting to sleep than Sam, but his dreams were uneasy. Images of Sam lying on the ground dead kept on weaving in and out of other scenarios like bombs exploding, buildings collapsing, people taking their final breaths…

It was still the image of Sam lying face up, staring at the sky with unseeing eyes that unnerved him the most when he finally awoke. As he slid his legs off of the bed and yawned loudly he thought briefly that staying awake may have been a better option, for now he felt the need to rush downstairs to Sam's ward and make sure her heart was still beating.

He shook his head slightly, hoping to dislodge the uneasy feeling from his mind as he did so. It didn't work. Seeing Tom out of bed made the petite blonde nurse that manned the desks rush over and try to persuade him to get back in. This nurse definitely knew nothing about Tom.

It was 7:30am. Sam may not even be awake yet, but at the same time she could have been awake for hours, tossing and turning and she fought to remember the last ten years of her life. Or something may have happened to her.

Maybe she had suffered complication and was now lying brain dead in some intensive care unit, a life support machine the only thing keeping blood pumping around her veins… Or maybe she was remembering some horrific event of her past, like pulling a man's broken body out of the rubble in Afghanistan.

Tom hurried down the corridors of the maze called St James hospital, his mind filling with images of Sam dying faster than he could expel them. It was only when he saw Zoe travelling down the same corridor in the opposite direction he was able to take his thoughts away from Sam momentarily, before he registered the direction she was travelling away from and began to wonder if her expression had any correlation with the images in his head.

"Zoe?" Tom called out uncertainly. "Is everything ok?"

Zoe merely snarled an inaudible response that ended with 'ask Charlie' and continued on down the corridor. Tom stared back at her for a moment before continuing himself, unsure of what to expect when he reached the ward.

When he did finally set foot on the ward he was face with an unconscious man being placed beside her. Sam looked slightly unnerved by his arrival, and the large bags under her eyes that Tom noticed as he grew closer did nothing to dissipate his worries.

"Sam?" He called over uncertainly.

"Who is he?" She asked, her face draining of the little colour it had left.

"I don't know… Charlie?" Tom called over to one of the nurses pushing the trolley.

"He was outside the hospital at the time of the explosion and has a head injury not unlike Sam's. We're expecting him to also have some kind of memory loss." Charlie replied as he hooked the man up to a heart rate monitor and put a line in his arm. "You alright Sam?"

"Yeah… Fine." Sam replied, before turning to Tom. "Well... As ok as I can be after last night."

"Last night?"

…

"Wow…" Tom said for lack of a better word. "You... You have your memory of being a doctor?"

"Apparently." Sam replied as they stared at the ED entrance from the balcony once again.

The view at eight in the morning on a cloudy day wasn't anything special, and the grey clouds were beginning to put a dampener on their moods. Tom had finally been able to convince himself that Sam wasn't in any immediate danger, though couldn't prevent his stomach from turning into knots every time he glanced at the turban- like bandage around her head and the wheelchair she was still forced to sit in.

"Have you seen Dr Hanna?" Sam asked after a brief silence.

"Sort of. She stormed past me mumbling something about not being allowed on the ward you're on."  
"Yeah... the old man banned her."

Tom stifled a laugh at Sam calling Charlie the old man, but it was tinged with sadness. Sam with all her memories respected everyone, including the nurses. Every time she made comments such as 'old man' it reminded Tom of how little he knew Sam while she had no memories.

"Do you want to head in?" Tom asked after another moment of silence, "I think it's going to rain."

"Yeah…" Sam muttered, but made no attempt to move.

Her gaze was still fixed on the tiny ambulance men and women travelling in and out of the ED. Her eyes, as Tom leant over to look, appeared glazed over as though she was lost in thought.

"Sam?" Tom said gently, touching her shoulder.

"Huh?!" Sam exclaimed, his hand making her jump.

"Sorry." Tom replied hurriedly, startled, as he removed his hand.

"Please... don't touch me."

"Is everything ok?"

"Yes. It's just… Tom I know you have loads of memories of who I am but I'm still discovering who that person is. I don't know if I'll ever be her again. I don't know you."

"Sam you're going to get your memory back. I'll make sure of it." Tom said determinedly.

"Please… Don't go out of your way. After my mother died I went back on my word and joined the army and my brother is god knows where. I... I killed and innocent men. I'm not sure I _want _my memory back."

Tom tried to act like Sam's last few words had no effect on him and he understood, but he couldn't quite manage it. As he wheeled her back down to the ward his stomach was a writhing pit of snakes, and his head was once again fogged over with worry. He wanted her to remember her life, more specifically remember him. He needed her to.

Something in his mind had taken told as soon as he had been informed of her memory loss, and it wasn't letting go. She was his friend, and he would do anything he could to help her.

But what could he do if she wouldn't help herself?

…

_**I will do my best to try and update again before the weekend is out. **_

_**Thanks for reading! :)**_


	12. Chapter 12

That man just wouldn't shut up.

Sam had been enduring the sounds of the man in the bed next to her complaining about every tiny thing for the last half an hour since she and Tom had returned from the balcony. Luckily the curtains were drawn around his bed, so she couldn't see his bald head with a bandage wrapped around it anymore or his protruding stomach, but the none too pleasant vocabulary coming out of his mouth was beginning to feel like someone was making a hole in her head with a pneumatic drill.

She could hear Charlie attempting to calm the man down with little success, and Tom often stuck his head through the curtains and tried reasoning with him, but nothing appeared to stem the steady flow of swear words and various other examples of vulgar language spilling from his mouth.

Sam had finally had enough. She stood up, ignored Tom's protests, and ripped back the curtains.

"Look!" Sam yelled. "I don't know who the hell you think you are or what the hell's wrong with you but some people are trying rest! So shut your oversized mouth and try and do the same!"

The man stared at her for several seconds as though she had just punched him in the face. He then resumed his torrent of foul language.

"I said SHUT IT!" Sam roared, hitting the mattress a hair's breadth from his right leg.

"You can't tell me what to do you little bitch!" He countered, grabbing her wrist and yanking over to her face as though he was going to bite her.

Sam pulled away from him easily and stepped out of grabbing range. Charlie, who had been busy preparing a sedative, rushed over and injected a milky coloured liquid into his arm. He effect was almost instant, knocking him out in mere seconds. Sam sighed with relief and sat down on the edge of her bed like a tonne of bricks, breathing deeply.

"You alright?" Tom asked, taking a seat in the chair opposite her.

"Yes…" Sam replied, her eyes closed. "Just waiting for my headache to pass."

"Sam." Charlie said from a couple of metres away. "The ED is shut after it got too full. We were wondering if you would like to go and look around, see if anything jogs your memory?"

Sam sighed. "No thanks."

As she opened her eyes she caught the tail end of a glance Tom and Charlie had shared- worry.

"Sam you're not going to get your memory back if-" Began Charlie.

"I'm not sure I want my memory back." Sam replied, before standing up and announcing she was going to the toilet.

In truth all Sam really wanted to do was get away from Charlie and Tom and into some place neither of them could follow. When she did enter she simply leant against the counter all the sinks were located on and sighed deeply, before turning around and examining her face in a nearby mirror.

At first the sight of the faint lines on her face shocked her, before she realized she was ten years older than the images she had of herself in her head. The turban- like bandage wrapped around her skull made her head look huge, and the bags under her eyes made her look older still.

The dressing on her forearms made her look as though she had just escaped a war zone. She felt tired, but not just because of the lack of sleep. The constant battle she was experiencing, fighting what her mind wanted to do was tiring her out. Her mind wanted to remember, she did not.

She didn't want images of people with their arms missing or bullet wounds in their heads playing through her mind, she didn't want the image of her mother taking her last breath, but unfortunately there was no way to remove that particular image.

"Sam? Is everything ok?"

Sam sighed. Tom. It's always Tom.

"Yes. I'm fine." Sam replied curtly. Why couldn't he just leave her alone for one minute?

"Sam can I talk to you?" Tom asked, pushing the door open and walking inside cautiously.

"Sure." Sam replied, still staring at her reflection in the mirror. In her head she ended that with 'because your going to talk to me regardless anyway'.

"Why don't you want your memories back?"

"I just don't."

"Care to be a bit more specific?"

"No."

"Sam I can't help you if you won't talk to me."

"Maybe I don't want your help."

There was a brief pause, and Sam could have sworn Tom appeared hurt my that remark, for his eyes seemed to take on a softer appearance as she stared at his reflection.

"Try and help me to understand. Either that or maybe you'd prefer to talk to Zoe."

Sam rounded on him.

"So you're threatening me now?" She snarled.

"No I-"

"Since you're so curious about why I don't want my memories I'll tell you. I don't want to remember people's heads being blown off in some war zone; I don't want to remember my mother dying. I don't want to know why I haven't spoken about my brother to any of you because something tells me it's not a good reason. I don't want to remember me pulling a trigger and killing an innocent man! I don't want to know who I've become! I'm a murderer who married someone I doubt I was ever in love with! What kind of person does that make me?"

Tom took a deep breath before replying.

"Sam. I'm going to hazard a guess and say the memories you have in your head of the first 20 years aren't all sunny days on the beach and spending time with your family. The bad things that happen in our lives, and the bad that we do, the mistakes we make and the people we fight with all define us as people as much as the good things in our lives do! We all have bad memories, we've all been embarrassed and we've all cried out eyes out, and I guarantee you there is not one person on this planet that hasn't lied at one point in their lives. It could have been something petty when you were a child or it could have been something major, it doesn't matter. Whatever you've done in the last ten years makes up as big a part of you as what you've done in the first 20. Yes, some of it will be bad. Really bad. But some of it will be good. Amazing, in fact. You saved people's lives, you got married and you survived a war zone. You're strong, Sam. Stronger than you know and I know that if you just give yourself a chance to remember you'll be able to see what an amazing person you are."

…

_**I hope you enjoyed Tom's little monologue at the end there! **_

_**This may be it for this weekend… I'm not sure yet! **_


	13. Chapter 13

Sam didn't know how to respond to Tom, so she followed her instincts.

Her legs carried her all the way to the balcony before her mind caught up, but when it finally did she became aware of the fact that her breathing wasn't unlike an old woman's. She leant against the rail for several moments, allowing her body to recover from and her brain to process the last couple of minutes.

What Tom had said made sense, but she didn't want it to. She didn't what to remember all those horrible things, to remember who she actually is over what she thought she knew about herself. Least of all she wanted to find out about what kind of a person goes against their dead mother's wish. But, in the back of her mind, there was one thought that was ripping apart her resolve.

What about her brother?

He was the only real friend she had as a child; most people dismissed her from the potential friends list as soon as they got a look at her tomboyish dress sense. Those that didn't soon changed their minds after getting a taste of her quick temper. She couldn't give up on the one person who had stood by her.

She took a deep breath to steady her nerves, and cringed slightly at the petrol filled air. Ever since she was young she couldn't stand the polluted streets of cities, instead preferring the quaint countryside towns dotted all over the UK with fresh air and ancient pathways that you could jog around for hours while praying that you didn't get lost.

Even if she did lost her sense of direction it never scared her, rather it thrilled her, the adrenaline rush you get out of racing around some woody area while trying to figure out how long you had before the sun went down and you froze. Some days she wouldn't find her way back, and ended up waiting for someone to realize she was missing before calling the police. More than one her mother had given her a slap round the face for scaring her half to death.

Sam sighed. Her mother. She was as tough as nails once upon a time, never letting how scared she was or how alone she felt really show around people. More than once Sam had walked into the kitchen and caught her crying over a picture of her husband, Sam's father, in his army uniform but not once did she ever accept any hand of comfort, arguing that it was her job to make Sam and her brother feel better not the other way around.

She wasn't sure if it was thinking about her mother was the catalyst, but suddenly her mind had taken her back to a far darker place in time.

The air was filled with the sound of people screaming, the smoke clogged her lungs and eyes. The machine gun fire whistled overhead as she fought to drag one of her injured colleagues back to the safety of behind the squadron she had accompanied, who were firing back with a frenzy.

They stumbled over every brick, more than once tripping over what felt like someone's lifeless body, but as the smoke became thicker it was impossible to tell. They both coughed and wheezed and the bullets wound to her colleague's leg splattered her uniform with blood. It was getting harder and harder to tell which way they were going, to the point where Sam had no idea if she was leading them either towards safety or towards their death.

The sand beneath their feet was also in their shoes, with the odd piece of shrapnel joining it and pricking their feet along the way.

The next few seconds of Sam's newfound memory was blurred, but involved her trying to turn around after realizing she had gone the wrong way and feeling the cold barrel of a gun pressing at her windpipe, accompanied by a harsh voice.

"Move, now."

The flashback ended as quickly as it came, and left Sam gulping down heaps of petrol laced air in the hopes of clearing her throat of the smoke from her memory. She then sat down upon the ground with her back to the railings and closed her eyes, now breathing deeply.

She didn't know what happened after the gun barrel had cut off her airway and she wasn't sure she wanted to. But at the same time she did. She didn't want to be haunted for the rest of her life by what she couldn't remember, like her brother's whereabouts and who she had actually become. She couldn't live like this.

Sam may have noticed Tom sooner had she not been so embroiled in her latest flashback.

"Sam are you alright? I didn't mean to upset y-" He began.

"It's fine. This wasn't you." Sam said flatly as she slowly stood up.

"Still, I'm sorry. I completely overstepped the mark." Tom said, giving her a look of concern. "What was this about?"

"Its fine and I flashed back to a day in the army." Sam replied in a way that made the summery day feel a few degrees below zero.

"What did you see?" Tom asked, stepping a little closer.

"I... Saw me. Helping someone." She replied slowly, frowning at the very last image she saw. "Then…"

"Then what?"

"Then… It doesn't matter. Look, Tom, I need a favour. Charlie said the ED was closed after it became too full, right?"

"Yes…" Tom replied, narrowing his eyes. "What are you..."

"Can you take me down there? I want to see it again."

…

_**Sorry about only being able to update once... My first exam is on the 13th and I've been going a little crazy with worry. Still, I did start my sequel to Haunted so I'm hoping that makes up for it :)**_

_**Thanks for reading and reviewing :) **_


	14. Chapter 14

To Sam's Surprise she and Tom weren't the only ones in the ED. Zoe was standing by the long abandoned reception desk with a frown on her face as she stared around at all the rubbish. The entire place was ransacked. Their were at least triple the trolleys Sam expected to see, and by the looks of them someone had decided to play the trolley equivalent of bumper cars, for three quarters of them were piled up against one door.

"Zoe?" Tom called.

"Tom … and Sam! What are you two doing down here?" Zoe asked as she turned to face them, her frown replaced by a suspicious smile.

"I wanted to see this place," Sam replied, "I'm guessing it doesn't always look like a... dump."

"No," Zoe answered, "or at any rate Holby ED certainly didn't."

Sam dodged several gurneys and stepped over to where Zoe was standing, Tom by her side. She stared at the bumper car trolleys once more and frowned.

"What's in that room?" She asked as she turned her gaze to Zoe.

"The staff room," Zoe sighed, "My jacket is in there..."

Tom laughed, "Well good luck getting it out! I think some of those Trolleys are missing wheels!"

"Yes, Tom, I know," Zoe said sternly, "I have no idea how I'm supposed to get in there.."

"We'll help you." Sam replied confidently.

Tom and Zoe both turned to Sam in surprise.

"_We'll _help? How would I exactly, drag those trolleys out with my teeth?" Tom exclaimed as he pointed as his bandaged arm.

"Oh, right," Sam said with a frown, "Then it's just you and me Zoe!"

"I haven't touched a gym in years…" Zoe mumbled, going slightly pale at the sight of the trolleys, "And you should be resting!"

"I'm fine physically!" Sam replied, "So lets get started!"

Around and hour later and Zoe and Sam were finally dislodging the last trolley from the front of the door, unluckily for them this particular trolley only had one wheel out of four left, so they were forced to hold it up and wheel it away on that one wheel. As soon as it as the last inch was clear of the door Zoe released it and sat on the ground, breathing deeply. Sam, on the other hand, was raring to go.

"Any other things that need moving in here?" She asked confidently, staring around at the ransacked ED.

"No!" Zoe wheezed from the floor.

A few minutes later and Zoe had finally recovered some amount of strength and had stepped through the staffroom door and emerged seconds later with her coat. Sam had Tom watched with an amused expression as she struggled to get her coat up over her shaking shoulders. When she finally managed it she turned around and stared at them both with an odd expression.

"So…." She said awkwardly.

"So what?" Tom asked with a frown.

"What are you two going to do now?" She asked, directing this question more at Sam then at Tom.

"I'm going to stick around here for a while and look around at everything; maybe it'll jog my memory." Sam replied with a smile.

"Well ok then," Zoe replied, apparently satisfied with the answer before adding "Just make sure you're back on the ward in the next hour, you've done a lot today. And Tom, don't let her out of your sight."

"Don't worry Zoe it'll be fine!" Tom replied after nodding.

"Hmm." Was the only response he got before Zoe waved goodbye and dodged a few more trolleys to exit the ED.

After Tom making Sam swear not to stay down in the ED longer than an hour and not to complain when he took her back up he allowed her to explore. She look in the storage cupboard first, at the gauzes and tubes, trying to name every single component. She could.

She next walked over to the cubicles and replaced a couple of the trolleys which still had all four wheels, trying to set the image in her head and see if anything came of it. Unfortunately nothing did. After a quick sigh Sam walked over to the reception desk and stared at the computer, and the several patient files littered around. She picked one up but after Tom's wanting did not open it, not wanting to breach the confidentiality of the patient.

When Tom though she was simply checking out a defibrillator he turned his back for a moment to use his phone. Sam found herself staring at him longer than she should have been, so when he turned back around she was caught in a rather awkward position.

"Erm I... I was just…" She stammered, but luckily for her she didn't have to finish that sentence.

At that point a couple of porters came through the door they had entered by and stared around at the mess.

"We were told to come down and unblock the staffroom door... looks like you two beat us to it."

Sam rolled her eyes and smiled. Tom looked at her with an amused expression, waggling his eyebrows.

"Uh, yeah, we sorted it." Sam replied after a moment';s hesitation.

"Right. Good. Saves us a job." One of them replied, a smile on his face.

That smile was quickly lost. A man had busted through the outside entrance. He was wearing a some dirty scrubs and a half burned lab coat, and had a large cut on the forehead that was dripping blood.

Sam gasped. She had seen this man's face before.

"I… I need the police…" He slurred. "I... I need to... To turn myself in…"

…

_**I was planning on updating last Thursday but both my laptop and my PC decided that now would be a great time to have some kind of malfunction, my PC's monitor is still fried and luckily I managed to open my laptop up and fix the issue.**_

_**So I was going to update Saturday then we had a power cut… which started Saturday evening and didn't end until the early hours of this morning and I was out all day saturday... ugh! That and my laptop's battery needs replacing as it keeps randomly cutting out on me… **_

_**For the first time since September I am officially school work free until the 13**__**th**__** June. Expect plenty of updates between now and then :)**_

_**Thanks for reading and reviewing! **_


	15. Chapter 15

Sam had taken in every detail of his face. From the thick black eyebrows to the piercing grey eyes and high cheekbones, she was sure it was him. It had to be. This was the man she was chasing in the flashback.

She quickly replayed the incident in her mind, the man wearing the exact same pale blue scrubs and lab coat this man was wearing was running away from her, and when he ran into the ED she must have seen something because next second she was turning tail and running full pelt in the opposite direction. Was this man the reason the ED had exploded?

Whatever he was doing here, he seemed to recognise Sam.

"Dr… Nicholls?" He slurred, his eyes not level.

He took another few steps forward before collapsing. Tom and the porters rushed over to him, Tom checking his pulse with his good arm while the porters stood a couple of paces away, unsure of what to do. Sam stayed exactly where she was, as though rooted to the spot.

"Sam?" Tom shouted, "I need some help over here!"

The sound of Tom's voice quickly snapped Sam out of her momentary stupor, and she ran over to help Tom lift the man onto one of the trolleys with all its wheels. It took several attempts, but Sam finally managed to heave him onto the trolley. Just as they did, an ID card fell out of the pocket of his lab coat onto the floor, making a clattering sound that only Sam noticed.

While Tom and the porter rushed towards AAU with the man Sam stooped to pick it up and read the name that was imprinted next to his photo. Mark James, Lab Technician.

The name stirred something in the depths of Sam's memory. She could feel an image forming, but she couldn't quite reach it, it was as though it was just out of her grasp. There was only one thing she was certain of: she knew this man somehow, and not just from chasing him through the ED.

Try as she might, Sam couldn't hold onto the tiny threads of the memory. She tried her utmost, squeezing her eyes shut and taking in every detail of the flashback, but nothing came. She had lost the only lead she had to finding out who that man was. But had she?

A new idea quickly took shape in her mind, though she knew what everyone was going to hate it. Especially Tom and Dr Hanna. She didn't care.

Sam quickly hurried back up to the ward she was staying on, taking the stairs two at a time, and reaching the reception desk in a matter of minutes despite the ED being over the other side of the hospital.

Aside from the patients however, the ward was curiously empty. Not a nurse in site. Even Charlie appeared to be missing.

Sam sighed and walked over to her bed. She figured she might as well sit down for a while as there was no telling how long Charlie was going to be. Unfortunately she'd forgotten about her rowdy neighbour. As soon as the bald haired man lying in the bed next to her woke up from what Sam assumed was a very long sleep, he immediately locked eyes on her.

"Get me a glass o' water will ya?" He demanded, pointing at the jug on his bedside table.

"Get it yourself. I'm not a nurse." Sam replied coldly, turning away from him.

"Oi! Girl! I said get me a flamin' drink o' water!" He yelled as he sat up in bed.

Sam frowned. She could have sworn he wasn't talking like that the last time she'd yelled at him.

"For a start," Sam quipped as she stood up and faced him, "I am not a _girl _I am a grown ass woman. For another thing your manners need some work, and lastly that 'drink o' water' you want is about half a foot away from your right hand. Though it looks as though you haven't exactly been to a gym in about 400 years, or got up off of your lazy ass in all that time, I think you're more than capable of getting a drink yourself. If not I could treat like you a toddler and get it for you, but that wouldn't exactly be the best use of my time and quite frankly the best use of my ear space either for I have no doubt you wouldn't keep your damn mouth shut."

Sam felt as though she was watching someone else speak through her lips all through that monologue, but enjoyed it all the same. She watched intently as the man made a song and dance about how much his _poor aching back_ hurt as he leant around half an inch forwards and grabbed the jug and a glass, pouring himself a drink and then replacing it agonizingly slowly.

"I could have had a bloody 'eart attack just then lady!" He moaned after throwing back his head and gulping down the water like there was no tomorrow.

"Judging by the fact that your heart rate monitor says otherwise I'd say… most likely not." Sam said in an amused tone.

"What're you then? A doctor?" He said in a mocking tone.

"Actually, yes." Sam replied, enjoying the way that his mouth hung open.

"What'ya doin' dressed like a patient with a turban round yer 'ead then?" He asked, staring at her bandage.

"Because I _am_ a patient." Sam replied after a long sigh.

"You just said yer a doctor." He said, waggling one of his chubby fingers.

Sam gritted her teeth to stop herself from shouting.

"I am a doctor at a different hospital. I was involved in an accident so now I'm here."

"I'm bettin' it was a car accident. Crazy woman drivers these days…" He grumbled.

"If you must know there was an explosion at my hospital. I was knocked out." Sam replied after a long sigh.

"What's wrong with ya then?" He asked, leaning forwards and peering into her eyes.

Sam sighed. "The blow to the head made me lose some of my memory."

"Hey! Same 'ere!" He said with a chubby grin.

Sam frowned. Why was he happy about that?

"How did you lose your memory?" She asked, narrowing her eyes.

"I, er, well I was in-"

"Sam?" Charlie shouted from over at the reception desk. "Are you alright?"

"Charlie! Where were you all?" Sam hollered back before getting up and beginning to walk over to him.

"Me and the other nurses were all watching the news. Looks like it _was_ a bomb of some kind which caused the explosion." Charlie said as more nurses filed out of the staff room behind him.

"Do they know how it got there yet?" Sam asked, leaning up against the reception desk.

"No idea. Did you want to see me?" He asked with a smile.

"Actually yeah. I want to discharge myself."

…

_**I know it's been a couple of weeks so if you're wondering about the flashback I mentioned then it was at the bottom of chapter ten. **_

_**As far as my exams went… I'll have to wait and see but thanks for asking. **_


	16. Chapter 16

As the taxi pulled out of ST James' hospital with Sam inside she spared a glance back and briefly accessed the memories she had of her 'argument' with Charlie.

"I don't have to tell you that that would be against medical advice." Charlie had said sternly after Sam had told him she was discharging herself.

"No, you don't." Sam had quipped in response.

"So why would you put your health in danger? Not to mention you have no clothes and no idea where you live." Charlie said pointedly.

"You left my medical file on the table near my bed. It had my address, and I'm sure this place has a lost property department. Surely you can rummage me up something to wear."Sam had replied calmly.

"How do you plan on getting _in _to your house with no key?"

"I'll… think on my feet."

So now, as Sam sat in the back of a taxi, heading for what Charlie had presumed to be her house Sam thought about what her actual destination was going to resemble. Holby City hospital. Or, rather, what was formerly known as Holby City hospital. Now it was most likely a pile of rubble surrounded by firemen and journalists. The only reason she was heading there was because she needed to remember who that lab technician was.

Maybe she would remember him, or at least some small chunk of memory that would shed a little more light on this mystery. For some reason she found herself caring more about whom this man was and why the hospital exploded than her own life and the years of memory she had yet to recover.

After around 20 minutes, the Taxi jerked to a halt, stuck behind hundreds of other cars- their occupants al trying to get a look at the headline news story. Sam sighed in frustration and shook her head, before leaning forwards and tapping the cab driver on the shoulder.

"Here's far enough. I'll walk the rest of the way thanks."

The cab driver nodded before whipping out a calculator. "That'll be £6.50 miss."

Sam nodded and pulled out some of the money Charlie had given her. He may not support her decision but he was a nice enough guy to still insist on helping her out. After paying the taxi driver Sam stepped out onto the curb and continued to walk down the street, seeing the cab reverse and drive back the way it came out the corner of her eye.

Of course, she didn't get very far this way either. The hundreds of people gathered behind the fluorescent yellow tape that marked out a boundary around 20 feet away from the start of the rubble was what greeted her.

After grumbling and muttering a few choice words under her breath Sam continued on her journey, shoving several onlookers out of the way and receiving a few insults for her troubles. When she finally made it to the front was about to step over the tape a police officer placed a hand on her chest and held her back.

"What are you-" Began Sam, giving him a look of indignation.

"The public is not allowed past this point, miss, so please stay where you are!" He shouted over the ruckus the crowd was making.

"I'm not-" Sam began, but found herself cut off by a man in a fluorescent jacket with a balding head.

"Sam! It's alright. She's with us." He said to the officer.

The officer looked between Sam and the stranger, narrowing his eyes and sighing before letting them pass. Sam accepted his hand as he helped her climb over the railings, a look of confusion on her face.

"Er thanks….?" Sam prompted, staring at the man curiously.

"Oh, right, Zoe told me you lost your memory. I'm Jeff. I was a paramedic here. We worked fairly closely." Jeff said awkwardly, his friendly smile fading a little.

"Oh, right. Charlie mentioned something about a paramedic called Jeff. You have a wife, right?"

Right on cue a woman appeared beside Jeff, giving them both a warm smile. "Sam! I'm Dixie, a para-"

"Another paramedic who's married to Jeff. Got it. Where are the police at with the investigation?" Sam said, dispatching with the pleasantries.

"They haven't got very far I'm afraid…" Jeff said, motioning her to walk with them.

"What do they know?"

"Only that the blast started in the recess and was most likely caused by a bomb."

"Like the kind you would find on a warzone?" Sam asked, stopping their walk towards the mountain of rubble.

"No. Like the kind you could make out of components you find lying around a hospital. It looks like some kind of chemical that reacts with oxygen was used to ignite it. All the person with the bomb would have to have done was expose that chemical to the air and place the resultant flame near the explosive," Dixie replied solemnly. "Or that's what the bomb squad told me anyway."

Sam considered this for a moment. A lab technician would have access to those chemicals.

"Where are the bomb squad now?" Sam asked as she stared at the rubble. "I need to ask them something."

"What?" Dixie asked, but Sam merely a shook her head as Jeff led around the edge of the rubble.

"Excuse me." Sam called over to one of the men wearing black helmets with visors and bullet prro jackets as soon as he came into view.

"Yeah?" He replied, walking over to them.

"I was informed by these two that the explosion here was started by a chemical bomb." Sam said formally.

"Yes…" The man said slowly, narrowing his eyes and staring at the bandage around her head, "And who are you?"

"Dr Sam Nicholls. I was in the explosion." Sam replied, holding out a hand.

"John Sloan." The man replied as he took it. "Was there something you wanted to ask?"

"Yes. How much time would the person have who set off the bomb to get away before it exploded?" She asked, her mind buzzing with a possible theory.

"About three seconds." He replied. "And they wouldn't get away without some major injuries. Some possibly fatal."

"So you doubt that the person who set off this bomb is alive?"

"Yes. That is highly unlikely. They wouldn't have been able to clear enough space between them and the bomb before it went off."

"And would this chemical have had to have been near pure oxygen to ignite or would the percentage in the air have done it?"

"There would have been enough in the air." The man replied. "I'm sorry but is this going somewhere?"

Sam frowned. She thought so. Sam was now aware that it could not have been the lab technician, or he would have been blown to pieces. So why was she chasing him if he wasn't carrying the bomb? Suddenly a knew thought hit her. Maybe she wasn't chasing him. Maybe she was running _with _him.

It was at that exact point that she spotted a familiar figure walking over to the group, with his arm in a sling.

"Tom?" Sam shouted, confused, "What are you doing here?"

"I had a feeling you weren't going home as soon as Charlie told me you left. But why are you here?" He asked as soon as he got closer.

"I'm... trying to figure out who turned Holby City Hospital into rubble."

…

_**Thanks as always for reading :)**_


	17. Chapter 17

Sam sat on the couch in Tom's living room awkwardly. It didn't feel right being here.

It turned out Tom was discharged about half an hour after Sam was, and following Charlie telling him that Sam had discharged herself he had ran the 2 miles between both hospitals so he could offer her a place to stay. Sam had reluctantly accepted, unsure about staying with someone she technically barely knew.

The conversation in the taxi back home had been all about Sam's theories as to who could have planted a bomb in the ED, and having Tom around proved an asset as he knew everyone's names and could tell Sam a bit about each person that passed through the ED. Unfortunately this gleamed her no new information. It wasn't until they returned home that something Tom said became useful.

"Do you want to watch the TV?" Tom asked, pointed at the flat screen in front of them after he sat down.

"No. But I was wondering if you could tell me anything else about the people who pass through the ED, like what about the patients that day? Were there any acting suspiciously?"

"Not as far as I could tell… and everyone who went into recess that day was unconscious, and all their possessions were stored else ware so it was unlikely any of them had a bomb."Tom replied with a frown. "Though…"

"Though what?" Sam asked as she stared at him eagerly.

"There was something a bit odd about you in the days leading up to the explosion." Tom said slowly, as though he was unsure of whether or not he should continue.

Sam felt a cold shudder run down her spine. "Something odd... about me?"

"Yeah...come to think of it you were being kind of secretive, like you had something to hide. I always saw you talking to someone on your break and I saw you leave the ED with them sometimes when you were supposed to be working?"

"Did you see who I was with?" Sam asked while sitting up a little straighter and hoping the conversation wasn't going the way she thought it was going.

"I never saw his face...but he was wearing a lab coat," Tom replied as realization dawned on him, "You don't think it was…"

"Mark James? Sounds like it. That would explain why he said my name when he came through the doors..." Sam said slowly.

"But what connection would you have to him?" Tom asked as he studied her face.

"From what I understood he couldn't have planted the bomb, he'd be dead, and all I have to go on is a vague memory of either chasing after him or running with him towards the ED doors and then me running back the other way after looking through the doors and a massive exploding sound coming from behind me." Sam said, staring at her lap as she concentrated on the flashback.

Tom's frowned deepened. "But he could have _made _the bomb."

"Yeah…" Sam agreed, "But I don't think he did."

"What makes you say that?" Tom asked, staring at her in surprise.

"I don't know… It's just a feeling I've got. I think know who made the bomb, or I did before I lost my memory." Sam replied.

"So if we find a way to bring your memory back then we may have an answer to all of this. But... what if you're connected?" Tom asked, giving her a look of concern.

"Then I turn myself in," Sam said firmly, "A lot of people were seriously injured or killed in that explosion, if I had any part of that then I don't deserve to have a life."

Tom stood up for a moment and stared at the TV, his eyes apparently transfixed on a tiny speck of dust that had landed on the screen.

"You ok sleeping on the couch? You're sitting on a blanket and it's getting late. Time for some rest." Tom said tonelessly before walking out of the room.

Sam followed the sound of him stomping upstairs and slamming the door before letting out a breath she wasn't aware she had been holding. She then stood up and picked up the blue blanket she was sitting on, before removing her jacket and folding it into a makeshift pillow before settling down to sleep.

…

_Sam was running as fast as she could towards the ED with Mark, who was slightly ahead of her. As soon as they burst through the ED entrance they both headed straight for recess. _

_Sam saw mark pull out the thing they had been working on together from his pocket and run through the double doors. The thing was blurred out in her dream, as though her mind didn't want her to see it. _

_Sam looked through the ED doors and saw Mark kneeling down on the ground right next to the doors and fiddling with something, before motioning Sam to run away as he stood up and followed suit. _

_The resulting explosion knocked the air out of Sam and propelled her into a nearby wall, and everything went black. _

…

"Sam! SAM! Wake up, you're having a bad dream!"

Sam opened her eyes. She was on the floor, her wrists being held firmly by a panicked looking Tom while she struggled and fought against him. She was drenched in sweat, her eyes darting around in their sockets.

"Sam what happened? What did you see?" Tom asked when she had stopped struggling.

"I saw me and Mark running… we were… I think we… I think we blew up the hospital!"

…

_***Dramatic music* **_

_**Enjoy the cliffhanger! **_


	18. Chapter 18

Tom had had his arm around Sam since her nightmare in the early hours of the morning. It was now almost midday. He couldn't bear leaving her, not after she had given him a blow by blow account of what had happened in the ED seconds before her whole life had been changed, and especially since he had deserted her after she had promised to turn herself in if she found that she had any part in the hospital blowing up. Keeping his arm around her was all he could do to stop her from walking straight into the nearest police station.

She had cried for a while, which had made Tom feel awkward but he didn't back away. It was moments like that what made him realize how little he knew about Sam now that she had lost every memory which made her the person he knew and cared for. She wasn't the same. The Sam he knew would never have cried.

Just as the clock struck midday she finally stood up. She seemed shaky on her feet, so Tom immediately stood up and placed a steadying hand on her shoulder.

"Do you want something to eat?" Tom asked gently with a small smile.

"I... Yeah." Sam replied, shrugging off his hand.

"Good. Come on then." He quipped, guiding her towards the kitchen.

"I think you're more than capable of throwing some jam on a slice of toast." Sam said with an amused tone as she was shepherded towards the kitchen.

"True… just like you're more than capable of running straight out of the door as soon as my back is turned." Tom replied, giving her another shove in the back with his good arm.

Sam half smiled, despite the tears streaks running down her face. They prepared the jam on toast in silence, Sam taking a plate out of a cupboard that hadn't been opened in around six months and washing it with a slight cringe. Tom watched her in silence for a few seconds, warranting a confused stare from Sam as she placed a couple of pieces of toast in the toaster and picked up the plate again.

"Am I thinking too loudly for you?"

"No... I'm just thinking," Tom replied, "You don't know anything about yourself."

"Well yeah. That's sort of what losing your memory means _Dr _Kent." Sam replied with another amused tone.

"No I know… I mean you've only heard things about yourself. You heard that you killed someone, married someone that you currently hate and went against your mother's wishes and joined the army as a medic. But what you don't know is _who _you are." Tom said, moving a little closer to her.

"I'm not following." Sam replied, putting the plate next to the sink and turning around to stare at him.

"You know things... events in your life. What you don't know is what kind of person they made you. You don't that you were a team player at Holby ED, and you cared about your colleagues. I don't see you doing anything to harm them. You sometimes are a little headstrong and reckless, bit you have a big heart and you always put your patents first. I don't see you doing anything to harm them, either." Tom said, taking her hand.

Sam quickly pulled her hand out of his own and backed away. "Well clearly something went wrong somewhere. I know what I saw."

"Yes, you know what you saw in your flashback and you were able to describe it to me in frightening detail. But how you interpret what happened in your dream changes who you think you are. Yes, I did tell you that you've been acting a little differently recently but I don't think you could have lived with yourself if someone had come to harm because of something you did."

"Then what do you think happened?" Sam asked, staring at him with a steely glint in her eye that Tom was used to seeing in the ED.

"I don't know. But I'm going to make you a deal." Tom said, placing his hands into his pockets and looking down at her with a smile.

"What?" Sam said, eyeing him suspiciously.

"We figure this thing out together. You stay with me, here, and we work on getting your memory back and finding out what happened that day."

"Aside from a headache, what do I get out of this deal?" Sam said with a frown.

"A place to stay and possibly a very good reason not to hand yourself into the police." Tom replied with a grin.

Sam sighed and rolled her eyes. "Fine. I'll stay."

"Good! Oh and Sam?" Tom said, stifling a laugh

"Yeah?"

"Your toast is burning."

…

_**Thanks for reading :)**_


	19. Chapter 19

Sam had been following Tom's path around the living room for the last half an hour. He had been pacing back and forth so much that Sam was half expecting a track to appear in the carpet. The expression on her face told Tom everything he needed to know about the mysterious phone calls he was making. She didn't like being out of the loop.

Tom had sworn that it was for her own good, and that what he had planned would help her regain her memory, but that was two days ago now and there was only so much daytime TV Sam could watch. Sure it had helped her to get up to date with current events and Tom's laptop had allowed her to research previous ones, but she was starting to feel around eighty years old every time _'Countdown'_ aired and sitting on the couch constantly was making her feel lazy. She wanted to get up and do something.

"…So we're all set, then. Everyone who can make it will be there?...Great...No, she's definitely up to this… Yes she is staying with me…Ok I have to go. See you in half an hour." Tom said as Sam gave him yet another death stare.

"Half an hour?" Sam enquired, reaching for her jacket hopefully.

"No, not you. Just me. I need to get a few things ready," Tom replied, and upon seeing her death stare become even darker added, "You'll be coming too later today. I promise."

"How much later? Sam enquired with narrowed eyes.

"Three or four hours. Maximum." Tom replied as he shrugged a jacket around his bad arm.

"Fine…" Sam said, staring at the TV with a haughty expression.

"See you soon."

"Bye." Sam called as the door closed.

…

"Three or four fours? Pfft." Sam muttered to herself after the eighth back to back episode of '_Countdown'_ aired.

Tom had now been gone for five hours. It was now late afternoon and Sam had taken to holding her phone, expecting it to ring or Tom to step back through the front door. She had long since given up searching for the remote, and so was forced to endure hours on end of what, even when she was young, was considered older person television.

She wondered if Tom was purposefully taking ages to engage his mystery plan, hoping leaving her stewing in his home would bring back a few memories, and then she checked herself. She had been stewing in a hospital bed for hours on end for the last few weeks and nothing had happened. Tom wasn't stupid enough to think that would work, and definitely not stupid enough to expect Sam to be perfectly happy when he got back. Maybe he was just trying to avoid her temper.

When her phone finally did ring at around the six hour mark, Sam was expecting to see Tom's name as the caller. She was in for a shock. Mark James.

Sam sat up a little straighter and mulled over answering it for a moment as a bizarre tune poured from the tiny speakers of what Tom had told her was an eye phone 4. Sam decide that answering it was the best idea, as it would stop that weird tune in its tracks and she would be able to find out what he wanted.

"Sam?" He called as soon as she picked up the phone.

"M-Mark James?" Sam stuttered after holding the phone awkwardly to her ear.

"How are you doing? One of the nurses here told me that you hit your head." He said in a conversational tone.

"I.. I'm fine I guess." Sam said, feigning calmness. Maybe if he thought she still remembered he'd tell her what she needed to know. "How are you?"

"I'm ok. The dust from the explosion damaged my lungs a little, though. Told you were should have got out sooner." He said a little sadly.

Sam's mind was reeling. What did he mean, got out a little sooner? Did they really set the bombs?

"Looks like you were right. We should have left sooner." She said as friendly a voice as she could muster.

"Looks like the chemical works though. Now we just have to get around to the other hospitals and finish sorting them out. I'm discharging myself when a nurse comes to see me. We can't wait."

"Y-yeah." Sam's said, her voice shaking. "Look, I.. I have to go. Bye."

Sam ended the call quickly, too shocked to speak. It was her. She had set out to blow up the hospital. With Mark James. And he was planning on blowing up more hospitals. She had to get to the police. Fast.

She stood up and shoved her phone in the pocket of her jacket before picket it up and slinging it around her shoulders. Her hands were shaking, so it took longer than normal to do up the zip and buttons. She stumbled towards the front door in a daze, and as soon as she placed a hand on it she hard a key being inserted into to the lock and backtracked.

Tom came face to face with a terrified looking Sam.

"What's happened?" He asked, rushing forwards and grabbing her shoulders.

…

_***Eastenders theme song* **_

_**...Just kidding. **_** I don't like Eastenders. **


	20. Chapter 20

Sam didn't know where to start. She was sitting on Tom's sofa once again, choking back tears as he kneeled in front of her with his hands on her knees. She was trying to find the right words to tell the person who believed in her that she was the cause of an explosion, and that he was wrong about her. There was nothing else she could see that that phone call could possibly have meant.

The first three times she tried to tell him what happened her speech was slurred and she was sobbing uncontrollably. She felt sick, weak and disgusting. She was the reason so many people had died. The fifth time she tried to speak it was a little clearer.

"I... G-Got a call… From Mark James" She said, fighting back the tears that were threatening to erupt from her closed eyes.

"He had your number? What did he want?" Tom asked, sitting beside her on the sofa and staring at her with a worried expression.

"He wanted to tell me that he had suffered a little smoke inhalation, that we should have got out of there sooner and we needed to go around to other hospitals and 'sort them out' too." Sam replied bitterly, her fear suddenly replaced by anger at the thought of being responsible for blowing up a hospital.

"So… you really were…." Tom said, unable to speak properly, "You must have heard him wrong."

"I wish I did, believe me. God, this whole mess is my fault!" Sam shouted, standing up and heading for the door.

Before she could reach the door or Tom could stop her, her phone rang once again. Sam didn't bother looking at the caller ID, she knew who it was instantly.

"Mark," She said sternly into the phone, "We need to get a few things straight here."

"I'd say we do," Came the slightly tinny reply. "I've been arrested. I can't finish the job. It's up to you now."

"How are you calling me if you've been arrested?" Sam asked, before remembering that you are allowed one phone call.

"This call seemed more important than one to my lawyer. We need to end this, and fast. I'm counting on you." He said determinedly.

"Bit difficult seeing as I'm turning myself in too." Sam said angrily.

"Sam no! I know some of the ingredients we used to make the chemical were illegal, but we're doing nothing wrong!"

Sam snapped.

"NOTHING WRONG?!" Sam screeched, "You call blowing up hospitals doing nothing wrong?! You're insane if you think I'm going to help you, Mark, and I hope they lock us _both _away for a VERY long time!"

Sam ended the call without waiting for a response. Her chest was heaving as she took in deep breaths in an attempt to stem the flow of outrage that was erupting inside her. Nothing wrong? Why did she get the feeling there was still a massive piece of the puzzle missing?

"Mark's been arrested," Sam said to Tom over her shoulder. "Time I turned myself in."

"Sam wait. You really think they're going to take you seriously? You lost your memory for god's sake!" Tom shouted.

"Did you not hear me?" Sam said, her voice cold and lifeless, "I'm the reason the hospital that you worked in for nearly two years is a pile of rubble. I'm the reason people are seriously injured or dead! I KILLED people, Tom, maybe I wasn't the one who set the bomb off but I still had a part to play in all this, a part which meant that innocent people and their families were hurt!"

"I still don't believe you were the one who did this. I can't believe it," Tom said stubbornly, "and I'm going to prove to you that you're not a murderer."

Sam gave a hollow laugh. "How exactly? In about fifteen minutes I'm going to be in handcuffs!"

"By doing this. I really am sorry." Tom replied sadly, giving Sam a swift rabbit punch to the temple.

Everything went black instantly.

…

Mark James was struggling against the handcuffs that held him to a hospital bed. He needed to get to Sam before she did anything crazy. He was still reeling from what she had said.

Why did she think that they were criminals now? She had been perfectly fine with the plan to start with!

Granted creating a chemical using other chemicals which were highly corrosive and technically need a license to handle was in fact breaking the law, but they were doing it for a good cause! They were saving people!

"Nurse! Nurse!" Mark yelled, directing his shouts towards the reception desk and receiving two haughty stares from the police officers standing by his bed.

"What?" The particularly irritable nurse said as she came over.

"I need to get out of here." He said in a low voice, hoping the police officers wouldn't be able to hear. "There's cash in it for you if you let me free."

"Hah. You must be joking." She said, accompanying this statement with a high pitched laugh. "You're the guy who blew up Holby City, right? Why the hell would I help you? Murderer. Hey boys you better keep an eye on your captive over here. He's looking to use a little cash incentive to escape. I'll warn the nurses."

"No! No you have this all wrong! I was helping those people!"

"Shut it!" Shouted one of the police officers before turning to the nurse, "Thank you for the heads up and don't worry, this freak won't be going anywhere but a jail cell once you guys have given him the all clear."

…

_**All will become clear over the next few chapters…**_


	21. Chapter 21

Sam's hearing was the first thing to alert her mind that she was now conscious, as even though she didn't know her all that well Zoe's brash tones were unmistakeable. She was clearly annoyed at Tom for knocking her out.

"What happened to your BRAIN? She has a head injury for god's sake!" Zoe shouted.

"I know but if I hadn't she would have been locked up in a police cell right now!" Tom retorted, his voice not quite matching the volume of Zoe's.

"Ugh! Where are we anyway?" Zoe snapped, "You drag us out of our homes, telling us you have some big plan for Sam and take us here, why?"

It was at that moment Sam noticed a cool breeze on her skin. She had assumed that she was in the hospital, as there was a soft pillow under her head and she must be lying on a mattress with some kind of thick blanket over her, but the crisp evening air told her otherwise.

"We're on a field." Tom replied in a tone which made Sam feel that was obvious.

"Yes, Tom, I do have eyes. I mean _where _is this field? How far away are we from our homes? And why did you take us here"

"I'd say a couple of miles." Charlie replied, "But I have no clue why."

"I'd say a couple more than a couple, but then again it is a bit hard to tell when there's a madman driving a van with all of us in the back and no windows…" Linda quipped, "Tom what the hell were you thinking?"

"We need to get Sam to remember," Tom said forcefully, "And there can't be any distractions."

"So a doctor's office with a _trained_ psychiatrist present wasn't an easier option?" Zoe replied.

"Apparently not." The woman Sam remembered to be called Dixie replied.

"Look. If it helps Sam then I say we trust Tom. He knows her better than any of us." Jeff said.

Sam was beginning to wonder how many people there were exactly gathered around her seemingly unconscious form.

She heard someone sigh.

"I'm going to see if she's conscious." Zoe said in a dejected tone.

Sam's last thought before Zoe peeled back one of her eyelids and shined a torch in it was _not again, _followed by her moaning and swatting the light away.

"How are you feeling?" Zoe asked as everyone's attention became focussed on her.

"I have a headache," Sam murmured as she sat up, "And I'll bet there's a nice bruise blossoming on my forehead right about now but other than that I'm fine."

Sam heard several sighs of relief.

"You stopped me going to the police station." Sam stated as she glared at Tom.

"Sam I had to. We need to get your memory back, at least the bit that has the information about the explosion," Tom replied with an apologetic look before adding, "Sorry about the blow to the head."

"Its fine," Sam replied flatly, "But you're not keeping me here."

Sam went to stand but found she could not move her legs. She threw back the covers in a panic only to discover to thick lengths of rope binding her to the mattress.

"_Tom!_" Sam screeched.

The sound echoed around the field and the temperature seemed to drop suddenly.

"I'm sorry, Sam, but for what I'm about to do next you need to remain completely still." Tom said sadly.

"What _are _you going to do next?" Zoe asked with a frown.

"I'm going to hypnotise you, Sam."

…

Following a long argument that lasted nearly an hour and Tom managing to get everyone except Zoe and Sam to agree, but after another fifteen minutes they both reluctantly came on board.

"Well you do have me tied to an old mattress in the middle of nowhere." Sam said with the barest hint of amusement in her voice.

So it was decided. Tom ordered no one to speak until he told them to, and warned them loud noises could break the trance. He had also warned her that this session was going to be short, as the aim wasn't to get her whole memory back just the parts she needed about Mark James.

The last thing Sam remembered was Tom telling her to focus on the breeze. She was now in amongst her own thoughts, and could not hear anything but snippets of her past. Machine gun fire was a common one, so was shouting at nurses and she could almost feel the defibrillator pads in her hands every time she heard herself shout 'clear!'.

The memories reminded her of spaghetti, for she could follow long streams of thoughts but once she had digested that another would sway through her vision, not linked in any way to the last one. She could see herself in scrubs running around Holby ED and then once again on the fields of Afghanistan fighting to keep someone alive.

Finally the memories she needed drifted into focus and she found herself being led down to the labs with Mark James and... and she couldn't believe what she was seeing.

She forced herself out of the trance and sat bolt upright once again.

"Sam?" Tom asked uncertainly.

"We need to get to St James'," She shouted, "Mark's in danger, everyone's in danger!"

"Slow down! What did you see?" Zoe asked as she knelt down and placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Zoe we don't have time to talk! Everyone is in danger!" Sam repeated, looking around wildly before trying to wrench the bindings off of her feet."

"Is James really going to blow up the hospital?"Linda asked, hugging herself tightly.

"No! Not him, someone else! Gah! I should have seen this coming!" Sam shouted, "Now hurry up and get these bindings off will you?"

"Wait, so if he doesn't have anything to do with the explosion than neither do you!" Tom said excitedly.

"You're wrong. I do have something to do with the explosion and so does James, but just not in the way that I thought before. Now _are you going to get these bindings off me or do I have to chew through them?_"

…

_**Dun dun dun… **_

_**All will be revealed next chapter… **_


	22. Chapter 22

As soon as the van pulled into the car park of St James' hospital Sam had already unbuckled her seatbelt and was reaching for the door. Tom placed a hand on her shoulder in an attempt to slow her down but she simply shrugged him off and headed for the closed ED doors at full speed.

As soon as she was in the building she headed for the nearest lift and punched in the number of the floor her destination laid at the last time she saw him. Just before the lift doors closed she saw Tom and Zoe running full pelt towards the lift, tying to catch up with her. She assumed after they failed to make it they were most likely heading up the stairs, however she doubted they'd know where she was going a she still hadn't told them a thing.

When the lift doors finally opened on the desired floor a porter stepped in and Sam stepped out, quickly hiding around the corner of a nearby corridor to avoid the stair well Tom and Zoe had busted out of. They took one look at the numbers on the lift going back down and Tom let out a frustrated moan.

"Where the hell is she going now?" Tom shouted before he and Zoe headed back down the way they came.

Sam would have laughed if she wasn't so worried about the danger the hospital was in.

She quickly ran past the stairwell when the sounds of Tom and Zoe's thundering footsteps echoing around the small space told her they were at a suitable distance away and headed back to the ward she was on for most of her stay here.

When she finally reached her destination and burst though the double doors at the back of the ward several nurses jerked their heads up in surprise. Sam didn't bother sparing them a glance, instead hurrying towards the bed next to hers with the curtains pulled around it.

She whipped back the curtains with a flurry and was greeted by the sight of an empty trolley with a dribble of blood near a drip which had been pulled out. Sam let out a scream of rage and rounded on the nurse who was shouting her name.

"Sam! Please calm down-"

"Where did the man in this bed go?" Sam demanded.

"What? I-I don't know! He should still be there..." The nurse said as she frowned in confusion.

"Well congratulations!" Sam said while clapping loudly, "You just let the real cause of the explosion get away! _Well done!_"

"Sam I think you're confused," Another nurse said gently as she held up her hands like she was trying to calm a spooked animal, "The man who blew up Holby City Hospital is downstairs, his name is Mark James and the police have him in their custody."

"No," Sam said in a voice which made the nurse back away several steps, "I think _you're a_ little confused. Mark James was trying to save Holby City but we got there too late! It was the man lying in this bed that created that chemical bomb!"

Suddenly it hit her. If Mark James was downstairs and was taking the wrap for something he hadn't done, this man was more than likely hoping it would stay that way so he could get away. Mark was in danger.

"Where is Mark now?" Sam shouted.

"Sam I think you better sit down while we call psyche." The nurse replied, offering her a seat.

"You all think I'm crazy? Wonderful." Sam said sarcastically as she rolled her eyes.

"Sam there is no way any of this is true... Mark James is the criminal, it's all over now!"

"I am going to say this once and once only. Mark James was a lab technician at Holby and the man who has supposedly lost his memory and was lying here is his boss. A couple of months ago Mark feared his boss had some kind of drug addiction and so asked me to talk to him, and when I went into his office I found him smoking cannabis and there was a line of something else on the table. After having a long conversation and persuading him to get rid of the drugs I thought I had gotten through to him but it turned out he was just playing me. Mark came to me a couple of weeks later and told me that he hadn't quit and he had discovered that the reason he was taking the drugs was because he wife and two kids had died in Holby ED. When I went to talk to him about bereavement counselling I got a glimpse of some kind of schematic on the table that looked a machine he was building. This time he told me to get out and wouldn't listen to me or Mark. I told mark to keep an eye on him and a day later Mark told me he got a look at the schematic and it was actually on how to build some kind of bomb which would be set off by a chemical that reacts with air and ignites. We both ran down there and tried to find him but he must have been long gone by that point along with the schematic and however far he had gotten with making the bomb. Luckily mark had copied down the formula of the chemical and we attempted to make another chemical that would neutralize the one he had made. Problem was he had already set the bombs, as apparently he had made a load of them, in recess and wasted no time gloating about how we had failed to stop him, so we ran there and Mark was about half way through applying the chemical to the first when we realized there was no way to stop them going off in time because the reactions had already started so we decided to run and Mark yelled at anyone nearby to do the same." Sam took a deep breath after finishing and stared around at the dumbstruck faces. "So will you please tell me where he is before his crazy boss gets to him?"

"AAU" Said one of the nurses shyly.

Sam nodded thanks and started to run again, pushing past doctors and patients alike. Even though the remembered the majority of what had happened there was still something troubling her. Mark had said we have to sort out the other hospitals. Did that mean more bombs?

When Sam finally reached the ward she looked around for a few seconds before noticing the police guarding the door to the private room. Luckily for her they were too busy walking to a nearby nurse to notice her slip in.

Sam approached Mark slowly, confused by the terrified expression plastered on his face. As soon as she reached the bedside she was about to say something to calm him down but found her voice cut off by a large scalpel being pressed into her windpipe.

"That's far enough Dr Nicholls…"

…

_***More dramatic music***_

_**Sorry about the massive block of text… **_


	23. Chapter 23

The metal being pressed into Sam's neck was cold and sharp, making her cringe. She could feel his heavy breathing which almost sounded like wheezing making the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, and the firm grip he had on her left shoulder did nothing to ease her worries.

"So ya found me eh?" He said in a cheery tone, "Well I need a little ol' favour. Walk o'er to that door and lock it, will ya?"

When Sam didn't move he added, "Or your friend mark 'ere will have an accident."

Sam felt the pressure on her neck decrease and slowly walked towards the door, locking it with a loud 'click' so the police would notice. Both cops immediately turned around and stared at her with a panicked expression, demanding that she open the door through the sound proof glass. Sam shook her head and pointed to the bald and chunky man behind her with a scalpel. They immediately stopped asking.

"Good girl. Now come back 'ere" He commanded, but instead of pressing the blade to her neck he merely shoved her so she sat on the bed next to Mark.

Sam turned her attention to him as he was sweating profusely and had taken on a pale complexion.

"You ok?" Sam asked as placed a couple of fingers on his neck.

"Y-yeah… You remember now?" He asked with a small smile.

"How do you know I lost my memory?" Sam asked as she frowned as his racing pulse.

"He filled me in. So I guess you got it back, huh? Good for you." He slurred as he closed his eyes.

"Mark stay with me," Sam said urgently before turning to her captor, "Did you give him anything?"

"Who me? Nah nah darlin' He was like that when I got 'ere" He said as he gave her a wide toothy grin.

"He has a fever." Sam said as she felt his forehead, "He needs medical attention right now."

"That ain't gonna 'appen" He said as he replaced his smile with a menacing look.

"Well then he'll die and another person will be added to your murder tally. Mark can you hear me?" Sam asked as she shook him by the shoulders.

"I was hopin' you would show up." He continued as though Sam had never spoken.

"Yeah? Why's that?" Sam asked as she stood up and took the blanket off of mark.

"'Coz it was your ED which killed me wife and kids, wannit?" He replied.

"I didn't handle that case so why are you going after me?" Sam asked without looking up.

Suddenly their captor strode across the room with remarkable speed for a man of his size and grabbed a fistful of Sam's hair, pulling it until she was looking up at the ceiling. All Sam could hear was the growling sound he was making at the base of his throat.

"Because you, girly," He began, pulling her hair back further, "Are the reason I 'ad to move up me plans. The bomb wasn't ready, the explosion would 'ave been around twice the size and took out the 'ole hospital if you and you meddlin' chum 'ere didn't get involved."

"You sick bastard." Sam said matter-of-factly.

"You better watch who you're talkin' to, girly." He replied, releasing her hair and walking over to the door where the cops were attempting to reason with him through the sound proof glass.

"Why?" Sam managed to gasp after rubbing her neck a few times, "Why do this?"

"'Coz someone needs to stop these bloomin' hospitals makin' people sicker than they already are." He shouted, banging his first on the door and making the police officers jump backwards and draw their batons.

"Iatrogenesis." Sam said with a sigh.

"What you talkin' about?"

"Belief that medical examination and treatment makes people sicker." Sam recited.

Then she frowned. Where had that word come from?

"I don' bloody care what it's called! You people killed my wife an' kids!" He shouted as he rounded on her.

"Actually that was you." Said a feeble voice behind them both.

Sam turned to see mark, paler than ever, pushing himself into a sitting position and staring at his boss with a livid expression.

"What you say to me boy?" The man behind Sam yelled.

"Actually that was you." Mark repeated, "You were drunk and driving and got into an accident then claimed your dead wife was the driver. Its your fault that your wife and kids died. You then started taking any kind of drug you could get your hands on as a way to appease you guilt and even went as far to plot blowing up all the hospitals in this area. You need to get it into your thick skull that _the reason you wife and kids died is you._"

For a moment he just stood there, shell shocked, before making his way over to the bed and grabbing mark by his neck. Sam tried to move him away, but the man must have weighed around twice of what she did and so she made no progress.

"If you ever," He began, his voice a menacing growl, "say anything like that again I will cut your flamin' 'ead right off! And gerrof me!"

He flung one of his arms out and hit Sam square on the jaw. She staggered back and grabbed one of the cabinets in the room for support, clutching her jaw with her free hand. It was then she noticed that Tom, Zoe, Linda, Charlie, Dixie and Jeff were all standing outside the glass, staring at her with a mixture of expressions in including worry and anger.

…

_**I just want to clarify- I'm going to start upping the romantic interest between Sam and Tom after I have the whole 'who caused the hospital to explode' storyline out of the way. That way the people who aren't Tom/Sam fans (still hate the portmanteau) don't have to suffer reading it as I know a fair few you aren't (even though it appears most of my regular reviewers are). **_

_**Thanks for reading and reviewing so far and there's still plenty to come :)**_


	24. Chapter 24

Following a quick examination of her jaw, by which she determined it was just bruised, she locked her eyes with the scalpel he must have dropped on the floor after Mark's monologue. She made for it as quietly as she could, and quickly secured it in her grasp.

She then stood up and faced the man who still had his fingers wrapped tightly around Mark's neck and raised the blade.

"Get off him. Now." She called out sternly.

"'Ang on a min darlin' I'll deal with you soon" He muttered, waving a dismissing arm at her.

"I said get off him. _Now._" Sam repeated, raising her voice slightly.

He sighed and let go of Mark's neck, leaving him gasping for breath on the trolley. He turned and started muttering something about 'dealin' with you first' before freezing in his tracks as he caught site of the scalpel that Sam was pointing squarely at his chest.

"Now now darlin'" He said as though trying to tame a wild beast, "Let's not get ahead of ourselves 'ere…"

"I can think of six different places to stab you that aren't fatal but would definitely incapacitate you until the blade was removed. I can think of over a hundred more which would end in your death, and I can think of one place to kick you that would cause excruciating pain." Sam emphasised her last point by looking down briefly at the place she was referring to.

"Alrigh' then. Wadoya want me to do?" He asked, placing a hand between Sam and the implied region.

"I want you to walk over and unlock that door." Sam replied simply.

"I'm afraid I can't do that, darlin'," He replied with a cheesy grin. "Why don't you?"

"Because the second I turn away you're going to try and grab the knife from me, knock me out or continue to strangle Mark. Or all three. Now get over there." Sam replied more calmly that she felt.

"I'm not goin' ta do that." He replied, widening his smile.

"Fine. Then I guess I'll incapacitate you." Sam said with a cold stare.

She wanted desperately to look back at Tom and Zoe and apologize for what she was about to do, but at this late stage that would not make any difference. Her hands were beginning to shake at the thought of harming a person, which made her frown. She had killed a man before, so why was holding a scalpel and threatening to cut making her shake like a child?

After several moments her captive spoke.

"If you're gonna be incapacitatin' me can ya get on with it already?" He said with the barest hint of laughter.

"You're in a hurry to get injured." Sam replied, hoping he didn't notice the shake in his voice.

"Well, darlin', not I'm not actually and I'll tell ya why. You're hands 'n' voice are both shakin' like a cold 'n' wet dog meaning you don't have the balls to carry your threat through."

"Don't bet on it." Sam replied, this time with no shake in her voice.

"Oh I'll bet on it." He replied menacingly before lurching forwards and attempting the grab the knife.

Unfortunately for him when he lurched forwards he left a 'delicate area' unprotected, so though he appeared to make some headway by grabbing the knife and almost stabbing Sam in the neck, she easily dodged and a quick knee to his sensitive area sent him howling in pain to the ground, rolling around on the floor with the scalpel long forgotten.

"I did warn you." Was Sam's only reply before she stepped over the man howling in pain and unlocked the door.

…

Tom had insisted on getting Sam checked out, much to her annoyance, and so three hours later she was sitting in on a bed in AAU waiting for the results of her facial X-Ray to see if her jaw was broken while Tom fussed over every bump and bruise that had appeared on her skin.

"Tom for god's sake!" She shouted when she finally couldn't take a second more of the fussing.

"I'm just making sure you're ok!" He replied, unsure of what he had done wrong.

"Tom I've already been checked out!" Sam replied exasperatedly, "and by over four different doctors, all at your request. _I am fine._"

"Let's wait for the results of the X-ray to determine that." Tom replied simply.

Sam felt like howling just as her captor had.

She had been to check on Mark, whose fever had broken around an hour ago and was looking much better, and watched as his crazy boss was carted away in handcuffs with Tom and Zoe by her side. Now all she wanted to do was go home and sleep, wherever home was exactly for she had lost the address.

After another half an hour wait Zoe came clopping over with her X-Ray results.

"You're absolutely fine, Sam." She said cheerfully.

Tom, not trusing anyone's judgement but his own, grabbed the envelope she was holding and took out the X-ray, holding it up to the light.

"There's an old break here." He said with a frown.

"What?"Sam asked, standing up and looking at the X-ray herself.

"Here," Tom said, pointing at where it had healed over, "It looks to be a few years old at least. Any idea how you got it?"

"Not a clue." Sam replied with a frown, "Can we just get out of here already?"

"Yes that's fine." Zoe replied as Tom look for confirmation, "But to be on the safe side I think its best you stay with someone over the next few days. You did take quite a knock to the head."

Zoe looked disapprovingly at Tom.

"You can stay with me if you like." Tom replied hopefully.

"…fine." Sam replied, confused by his obvious excitement.

…

_**Ok so that's the end of the whodunit section, now onto the Sam gets her memory back/finds out what happened to her brother/falls in love with Tom part. **_


	25. Chapter 25

2 weeks. One whole fortnight spent sitting around Tom's home watching TV thanks to the camera crews wanting an interview with 'one half of the double act that tried to save every hospital in the local area'. It had gotten so bad that Tom had had to buy a single bed for Sam as there was no chance of her getting back to her home in the future. That and since she had lost that address a couple of weeks ago she had no idea where home was and every time she breached the topic with Tom is would hastily change the subject.

That wasn't the only bizarre behaviour Tom had been exhibiting over the last couple of weeks. For one thing he had been watching Sam from the corners of doorways, when she was in the kitchen and following her around like a lost puppy. Every single time she had caught him staring he had cleared his throat and moved away, and if she asked him about it she got the same response. What confused her more than that was the expression on his face, as it was almost as though he was contemplating something. He looked wistful, which struck Sam as strange. She still didn't remember him but she doubted he looked like that often for it didn't really suit his face.

Sam had reasoned that he was following her around because he was worried about her, or that it was because he was waiting for her to remember something. That or he was watching her for any signs of nerves about her upcoming appointment.

Sam had reluctantly agreed to attend _one _appointment with a psychiatrist upon Tom and Zoe's request. She had pretended she didn't care about it, but in truth she was absolutely dreading having someone try to get inside her head. She had a feeling her unease was connected to the fact that Tom and hypnotised her in order for her to remember one small chunk of her past, and though everything surrounding that time was a mystery everyone around her had taken those events as proof that Sam's memories were not lost forever. Sam on the other hand had not been so optimistic.

In truth she wasn't sure if she wanted those memories back still, but she reminded herself of what Tom had said to her when she had told him this and reminded her of every day since: the good we do defines us as much as the bad and makes us who we are, and if Sam ever wanted to know who that person is/was then she was going to have to remember everything.

In those two weeks Sam had had a lot of time to mull over what exactly that meant, and compare how she felt about herself to how people were treating her. Zoe had treated her like a friend every time she had encountered her, still scolding Tom two weeks on for hitting her over the head and telling her that she was a great person and her actions when the whole hospital was in danger proved that.

"But why didn't mark and I just go to the police?" Sam had asked.

"Maybe Mark had asked you not to. He seems like a decent guy, maybe he wanted to help his boss by covering his tracks." Zoe had replied.

In her head that had made sense, but when she thought about all the people that were killed and injured because they couldn't stop the bomb blowing up in time it made her think twice.

"Sam?" Tom called from a couple of rooms away, jerking her out of her thoughts.

"In the living room." Sam hollered back, staring at the TV with a blank expression.

"Hey," Tom said as he entered the room and sat down, "You ready for tomorrow?"

"As ready as I'll ever be." Sam replied in a disgruntled tone, as tomorrow was the day of her appointment.

"Look, if you don't want to go then you don't have to." Tom said gently.

"It's fine. No offence but I could use a change of scenery." Sam said quietly.

"None taken. This house is boring as hell." Tom replied.

"Why do you live here then?" Sam asked, turning to stare at him.

"Because I worked long hours and there didn't seem to be much point in moving into a bigger house when I basically just come here to sleep, and sometimes I don't even do that. But now that I don't have a job to go to…" Tom trailed off with a frown.

"Can't you work at St James'?" Sam said curiously.

"Zoe's trying to get us all doing just that, but the majority of the staff don't want to or have Injuries," Tom said sadly, "And I can't work until my arm's out of this sling anyway."

Sam honestly felt sorry for him. She still remembered she rush she got from doing chest compressions on one of Zoe's patients in the ED. When you have a job that you love its tough not being able to do it anymore. Sam decided now was a good time to see if she could get any more information out of Tom about why he keeps staring at her.

"Tom?" Sam asked uncharacteristically nervously.

"Hmm?" Came thee response as he stared at the TV as though hypnotised by it.

"Why do you keep watching me from the corner of doorways?" Sam said, and promptly regretted it.

"I, uh, I'm going to go make some food. Want something?" He asked as he hastily stood up and headed towards the counter.

"No... I'm good." Sam sighed, settling back down.

So much for that then.

…

_**Over 100 reviews… wow! Thanks a lot everyone :)**_


	26. Chapter 26

Tom couldn't help it. He knew he should have backed off as soon as Sam noticed him staring but he was transfixed. He refused to look at the real reason behind the staring, instead coming up with a whole plethora of excuses such as 'I'm just worried about her after that head injury', or 'I just don't want her to be afraid or on her own'.

Naturally that little voice in his head that only spoke logic refuted these ideas in an instant, but still he refused to believe anything else. There was no way that he was falling for her again. Absolutely no way.

"Tom? Hey, driver! Eyes on the road!" Sam shouted in alarm, snapping him out of his daze.

"Sorry!" Tom replied as they almost swerved onto the curb not five minutes into their journey.

He knew he really shouldn't be driving with one arm, so he had taken the other rout of its sling temporarily. The bone, he reasoned, was pretty much healed by now anyway.

Today was Sam's first appointment with the psychiatrist, and judging by the relaxed look on Sam's faced he was more nervous than she was. Sam had insisted on sitting in the back of the car, and Tom had a funny idea that was because she knew what was going though his mind, but she didn't say why.

"You ok? We haven't really spoken since last night…" Sam asked as she stared at him in the rear view mirror.

"Yeah I'm fine." Tom replied flatly.

"How far away are we now?" Sam asked impatiently as she stared out of the window looking for street names even though they were both fully aware there was no chance of her recognising any.

"About ten minutes I'd say." Tom said as he glanced at the Sat Nav.

"Good." Sam quipped.

"You're awfully eager to get your head examined." Tom stated in a confused tone.

"No not really. But I am eager to get in and out of here as fast as humanly possible," Sam replied in a moody tone before adding, "I hate these places"

"Yeah? How come?" Tom asked, glad for the conversation.

"I went to one when I was a kid. He was a large guy with a huge moustache that twitched every time he spoke, and when he did it was always in a monotone with no feeling," Sam replied, "Freaked the hell out of me."

"How old were you?"

"About 13 I think," Sam said with a frown as she tried to remember, "Or 12."

"Well that was what… about 18 years ago now? You'll be happy to know things have changed a lot in 18 years." Tom said with a small smile.

"Yeah? How do you know so much?" Sam asked as she stared at him once again in the rearview mirror.

"I've had psyche training." Tom replied.

"Any chance you'll know what he's going to ask me in there?"

"Not a clue. It's been a while since I came across a memory loss case."

"So I'm a case now?" Sam said angrily, crossing her arms in disgust.

"Not to me, no. But to the psychiatrist, yes." Tom said evenly, "And here we are."

Once again Sam and Tom entered the all too familiar ST James' hospital. Tom led the way, following the signs which led through the maze if corridors, dodging trolleys visitors as they went. When they finally reached the psyche department there was not anyone else nearby, and so the doctor, a 6ft body builder by the looks of it, simply opened the door, shook hands with both Tom and Sam and invited Sam inside while asking Tom to wait outside.

Tom did as he asked, pacing around the empty waiting room for what felt like hours, but in reality as he checked his watch had only been around half an hour. He was worried.

He didn't want Sam to go through any more pain. She had already discovered some of the most harrowing details of her life, such as killing a man who wasn't even a threat and her mother dying, and also uncovered several mysteries like what happened to her brother. Tom couldn't even imagine what it must have been like for her to have awoken with no recent memories.

Around an hour later the door finally swung open to reveal a disgruntled Sam who was curse words under her breath. She slammed the door shut behind her before heading out of the waiting area without so much as a glance at Tom.

"Sam stop! You're going the wrong way!" Tom shouted as she power walked away from him.

"I don't care!" Sam hollered back.

After taking a winding route out of the hospital which cost them an extra ten minutes inside it, they finally exited the hospital and Sam stormed over to Tom's car before opening the door and slamming it shut after she had got.

Tom sighed and got into the drover's seat once again. It was going to be a long journey.


	27. Chapter 27

Sam was fuming. There was no other way to describe her mood. She and Tom drove back to his house in silence, every attempt Tom made at light conversation only irritating her further. She didn't want to talk, and she definitely didn't want another session with that psychiatrist.

When they finally pulled up outside Tom's house Sam got out of the car immediately and stormed up the pathway, waiting by the door for him to produce the key. Though he had given her a spare she rarely used it as he always had his key on him anyway.

As soon as the door was unlocked Sam headed straight for the bathroom, intending to lock herself in there for a few hours and get her head together, both Tom stepped ahead of her and blocked her entrance.

"Move. Now." Sam commanded as she tried to shove him out of the way.

"No," Tom replied simply, "Because we both know if I move away from this door then all you're going to do is lock yourself in there and come out in a few hours, refusing to tell me anything."

Sam stared at him for several seconds before answering, "Trust me, you do NOT want to be around the mood I'm in right now."

"Trust _me_," Tom countered, "You do not want to try my patience right now. Go downstairs and sit in the living room. We can talk there"

Sam stared at him for a long moment. She wanted to rush into that bathroom and be alone, but she knew that there was no way Tom was going to allow that, and even if she did get past him and inside he'd probably bang on the door and order her to come out until she did.

With a sigh Sam reluctantly trudged down the stairs, coming to a halt at the sofa before throwing herself down on to it. Tom joined her a few seconds later, sitting a polite distance away on the same settee.

"So?" Tom prompted after a couple of minutes of silence.

"So what?" Sam quipped back.

"What's the matter?" Tom asked, "What happened in the psychiatrist's office?"

Sam sighed before answering, "He just said some things I didn't really want to hear, that's all."

"What? Like you may not get all your memory back?" Tom asked in a worried Tone.

"No. Actually he's fairly certain that at some point I'll regain all my memory. Its just…" Sam trailed off with a frown.

"Its just what?" Tom prompted.

"I told him about what I remember so far and he said that memory loss cases like mine are often more about the person's desire to remember than the actual act of remembering things. I asked him what he was trying to say and he replied with he thinks I don't _want _to remember." Sam said with a frown.

"I can see why that upset you." Tom said after a brief pause.

"I mean of course I want my memory back!" Sam exclaimed, rising to her feet and beginning to pace.

"Did he say anything after he told you you don't want to remember?" Tom asked with a frown on his face.

"No. That's when I got up and left," Sam replied, "You... you don't think he's right, do you?"

"Sam I…. I do wonder if there is some truth to it." Tom admitted, staring up at her now she was standing in front of him.

"W_hy?_" Sam demanded.

"Sam… you can't have forgotten that you had doubts about remembering everything after you discovered your mother had died of cancer and you shot someone-"

"-murdered someone-" Sam interjected.

"-So I'm wondering if your psychiatrist came to that conclusion based on what you said." Tom finished, choosing to ignore the interruption.

"But... but that was before." Sam replied simply as she sat back down.

"Before what?"

"Before I figured out that my memory was the key to figuring out what happened to the hospital. I wanted to remember when you hypnotised me. I needed to remember." Sam said in a detmined voice.

"But you only wanted to remember to figure out if you were the bomber or not." Tom said slowly.

"You're wrong. Before I left the hospital Charlie had tried to stop me by not giving me the address to my home. I.. remember wishing that I could remember my life, so I could go without nhaving to ask someone where places that I should know were. Then I wished that again when the taxi took me part way to the crash site. I tried to remember what the places I was travelling around looked like because I wanted to. I want to remember." Sam said calmly.

"You really do want to remember… but you didn't tell your psychiatrist any of this, did you?" Tom asked, placing a hand gingerly on her shoulder.

Sam shook her head before replying, "He came to the conclusion that I didn't want to remember because of all the trauma I now knew about."

"But Sam… spoke a lot about places you want to remember, but what about all those memories you have of the last 10 years? You still have a lot of gaps and I can't tell you everything that fits in them."

Sam took a moment before replying. Tom had briefly mentioned they dated for a while when she kept calling him a boy toy. What if…?

"We dated for a while, right?" Sam asked, looking for confirmation.

"Yeah…" Tom said slowly, narrowing his eyes, "What are you-"

Sam silenced him by reaching up and pressing her lips to his.

…

_**I think some of you are going to kill me for that cliff hanger…. :P **_

_**Cholitam: Unfortunately I go back to school this Wednesday so that's where I'm going to have leave the daily updates… but how about this: normally when I'm at school I confine my updates to the weekends but I'll update on the 19**__**th**__** especially for your birthday, and thanks for reading this story from the start! :)**_

_**It would be great if you could leave another review to see if you like that idea! :)**_


	28. Chapter 28

Those 2 seconds felt like hours to both Tom and Sam. Sam was the one of initiate and the one to break away, and when she did she noticed the dumfounded look on Tom's felt like running a mile. She studied his expression for a moment longer before looking away, glad to see there were no traces of anger in his features.

In truth she had hoped that since talking to Tom and being hypnotised by him had caused her to remember certain events in her life and Tom had mentioned they used to date maybe kissing him would cause her to remember more. Unfortunately it didn't seem to be working.

Suddenly she felt a rush of heat on her face, and could almost feel her face changing colour. Without another glance back she decided to run from the room, ignoring Tom's calls, and straight out of his house.

She couldn't be near him after this. At least not today. She ran until she had a pain in her side, and realised for one thing her face was still burning and for another she had absolutely no idea where she was going. Relief washed over her features as she caught site of an empty bench across the road and she quickly sat down.

While she was waiting for the pain in her side to abate and her breathing to return to normal she looked around. Directly opposite her across the road was a pub called _'The old lady', _while behind her was a small park with a grassy field and a duck pond at the other end. The traffic on this road, whatever it was called, seemed to be quite slow with only a three of four cars going down every couple of minutes.

Once Sam had got her breath back she decided that now would be a good time to go home and so felt around in her jacket pocket for a key but came across something quite different. A £20 note.

With a quick glance at '_the old lady'_ a new idea suddenly formed in her mind.

…

Tom was reeling. He couldn't deny that he felt something from that kiss, but he highly doubted Sam did too as it was clear she ran off because she was embarrassed.

As soon as she left Tom had considered going after her, but rethought this as he was probably going to be the last person she wanted to see. Instead he called the one person who he thought was guaranteed to have a solution to this mess. Zoe.

Luckily it didn't take her long to come around, which only gave Tom more anxiety as he had no idea how to explain what just happened.

"Where is she?" Was Zoe's greeting as she stepped inside his home and looked around.

"Zoe I told you on the phone she ran out." Tom replied.

"I know you did, but I thought since you were here that must mean that she is as there is no way you would let a woman with no memory run around town all on her own with no idea where she was going," Zoe said before catching his expression and adding, "TOM!"

"I.. I don't think she wants to be found by me. She was really embarrassed when she left." Tom replied as he fiddled with the top button on the shirt he was wearing.

"What exactly happened?" Zoe asked.

Tom sighed. He really should have explained this on the phone.

…

Sam was now on her third glass of something and was too drunk to remember the name of the pub she was in. All she knew is that the burn she had felt at the back of her throat had now somehow been numbed along with everything else.

It was at this point a random stranger decided would be the best time to take the only remaining seat at the bar next to her at the bar and order himself a drink before turning to her.

"Hi there. I'm Ryan." The man said, holding a hand out to her.

"Sam. I think." Sam replied after a large hiccup.

"What's a pretty girl like you doing drowning your sorrows in a pub like this?" He asked, accepting the drink he barman had just handed him with a nod.

"I got into an arg-ment" Sam said through another hiccup.

"Boyfriend troubles?"

"Something like that." Sam replied.

For a moment they both sat there drinking their drinks in an awkward silence, several punters behind screaming in triumph as their side scored a goal.

"So do you live around here?" Ryan asked.

"I think so." Sam replied.

"Cool. So do I. You know if you want to talk about you and your boyfriend I'm all ears." He said politely.

"He's no' my boyfriend." Sam slurred as she finished her drink and called for a refill.

"But he wants to be. Typical. Some guys are just douches." Ryan said in a forceful tone.

"No, It wasn' like that." Sam replied, not quite able to pronounce the 't' on wasn't.

"Oh?" Ryan inquired.

"I kissed a friend, that's all." Sam replied, "And got really embarrassed about it."

Suddenly Sam felt tears begin to fall down her cheeks and her sober self had no idea why. Before she knew it Ryan was pulling her into a hug.

"Hey it's ok! I'm sure your friend won't mid being kissed by a pretty thing like you!" Ryan consoled as she rubbed her back.

If Sam was sober she would have noticed the odd fizzing sound coming form her glass as Ryan spiked her drink from over her shoulder, and the glass wouldn't so much as touched her lips. Unfortunately for her she wasn't sober, and suddenly found her body going strangely lip after taking a sip….

…

_**By the amount of you who wanted to kill me yesterday I think I'm going to have to get an armed guard! (LOL) **_

_**Aside from that… enjoy ANOTHER far more dangerous cliffhanger! **_


	29. Chapter 29

If Sam's looked back on that particular night in _'the old lady' _in a year's time, she most likely would have been grateful to Tom for bursting through the door and knocking 'Ryan', if that was indeed his name or even if it was it certainly wasn't one of the many that Tom had called him (most of which were too rude to repeat), to the ground before he was able exact out whatever plan he had. Unfortunately for everyone who had to exist around Sam between now and then, or at least for the next week or so after that event, they couldn't skip all the days in between.

The first few moments after Sam had regained consciousness were pleasant enough, but following her attempt to lift her head off of the pillow she came out with a response that anyone who had drunk too much the previous night or had been around someone completely drunk was used to hearing. That or an ED nurse. Or a hung over ED nurse who had to work a double shift.

"My head hurts…"

From there it just kept on getting worse.

"Well I'm not surprised. You did drink half a bar last night, not to mention someone drugged you with sleeping tablets." Was the all too familiar harsh tone of Zoe's voice as soon as she became aware of Sam's consciousness.

"Sleeping tablets? What the hell are you talking about?" Sam mumbled as she placed a cold hand on her forehead.

"Let me spell it out for you. Not only did you clamp your lips around Tom's you got piss-arse drunk at some sleazy pub where a sleazy guy who probably lived in a dumpster around the back of the sleazy pub managed to drug your exceedingly alcoholic drink with more sleeping tablets than someone's supposed to consume in a month before Tom burst in with me behind him and punched the hell out of your 'Ryan'."

Sam appeared to have heard the word 'Ryan' at the very least as her reply was simply "I think I remember a Ryan."

Sam's confused expression quickly changed to resemble one that could have been read by a passing nurse as absolute terror as Zoe drew herself up to her full height, which with heels on was a threatening 5"8, and stared down at the defenceless hung-over doctor with an expression which looked like she could think of a few places to stick one of the needles that was located nearby that wouldn't be exactly comfortable for Sam.

"Are you seriously telling me," She began in a tone which could have made a corpse turn slightly colder than possible, "That you don't remember last night?"

Sam gave a small nod with an expression which now read terror and bewilderment.

"Oh of course!" Zoe shouted with a terrifyingly manic expression on her face, "Of-fricking-course you don't remember a damn thing about last night when Tom is relying on your testimony!"

Sam was beginning to become a tiny bit more aware of what Zoe was saying, and so did in fact register all of the last couple of sentences.

"Testimony?"

"Yes Sam, a testimony. Another words a thing people have to give to get someone out of the police cell they currently reside in as apparently the word of a doctor who witnessed _most _of what happened and has no amnesia isn't good enough!" Zoe snapped.

Sam had a feeling most of what Zoe said wasn't completely directed at her, but her pounding head was getting in the way of logical thought.

"Sorry." Was Sam could think of saying.

"Oh no. You're not yet, Samantha Nicholls, because if you don't remember what happened in the bar in the next six hours I am going to personally make sure you know exactly what feeling sorry is all about!" Zoe yelled before clopping across the ward and away from her.

Now that the yelling and ranting had stopped the pounding in Sam's head had finally decreased to a level that was bearable and she felt able to take in her surroundings. Sam struggled to sit up, as her entire body seemed to be punishing her for the ordeal she had put it through and found herself staring around the ED of ST James' hospital once again.

Naturally her brain was still feeling a little fuzzy around the edges after her drink-athon and sleeping tablet snooze, so it did take her longer than normal to comprehend this information. It had also taken up until this point to fully understand what Zoe had just said.

The realization of Tom being in police custody for protecting her hit her like a tonne weight and she quickly sprang off of the bed like a spring lamb and stood with a purpose in mind. Or rather that's what she attempted to do.

Reality was a little fuzzier around edges, not unlike her brain, as the aforementioned drink had taken its temporary toll on her motor skills and caused her to stumble into a nearby nurse's arms.

"Are you alright, Dr Nicholls?" The nurse, who was now holding Sam up by her armpits, asked in alarm.

"I'm fine... I think." Sam replied slowly as the nurse dragged her, with the help or a couple of overweight and underworked porters, back onto the bed.

"Dr Nicholls your IV has come out!" The nurse yelled in alarm as Sam just about became aware of a cold sticky red substance on her left arm.

Sam sighed and rested her poor aching head back down on the pillow. This was another reason to hate not having all her memory. Seeing as she wasn't exactly a teenage party animal she had no memory of ever being drunk and so no memory of how to cure a hangover quickly.

Upon deciding that sleep was the best course of action following the nurse's third attempt to replace the line of fluids running into her arm Sam finally closed her eyes and succumbed to what her body apparently desired after her drunken tirade. Tom, unfortunately for him, would have to wait.

Besides, the fractured memories she had in her head of the night before would be absolutely no use to anyone.

…

_**Note to self: I'm never going to write an update to a story late at night again. My writing style appears to have adapted to something that is a bad attempt at comedy. Sorry readers! **_

… _**on a side note:**_

_**Cholitam: there is a hamster armed with some particularly nasty teeth right by my bedroom door now. Hahahah! Beware cliff hanger haters! **_

_**This will have to be the last of the daily updates I'm afraid as until the summer holidays kick in there will only be weekend updates so I can keep up with my school work. A2s here I come…. Yay :/ **_


	30. Chapter 30

Tom was worried. Not about his impending charges or the fact he was sitting in a jail cell most likely next to several real criminals, no, but about Sam. She had been completely out of it when he had been arrested at St James's ED, mumbling something ponies, and he highly doubted she was any more lucid now.

He had received one update from a police officer, who told him that the drugs Sam had in her system were high strength sleeping pills and that until Sam sobers up he was unfortunately stuck in that cell as her attacker was maintaining his story about Tom assaulting him for no reason. That and the fact there was also a chance that Sam may not remember the entire night, in which case he would be forced to rely on Zoe's statement for freedom and had already been warned by the police that her statement would not be strong enough to release him nor get the charges dismissed.

All he could do was sit in his cell and worry about someone who barely knew a thing about him and whom he doubted had remembered his name after her drinking spree last night. He had never been very good at keeping track of time and so now was stuck guessing. He estimated he'd been in the cell around 8 hours, and had been in the police station about 9, as he had had a rather lengthy interview to endure before they imprisoned him in a 6x4 cell.

It was around half an hour after thinking this that the various locks on his door were finally released and he was allowed out of his cell and straight into the interview room. He was hoping they were going to inform him that he was free to go, but instead he was faced with something that would have struck terror into the heart of the bravest man.

"Z-Z-Zoe?" He managed to stutter after staring at her irate expression for a few moments.

"_What the hell_" Zoe began in a voice that Tom immediately knew meant interrupt and you're dead, _"Were you thinking?"_

After deciding that Zoe did in fact want him to reply, Tom nervously answered "I was protecting Sam."

"You mean your wannabe girlfriend," Zoe muttered under her breath before continuing, "If he wasn't half your size he could have really injured you for one thing, and don't tell me you didn't know this could happen.

Zoe finished by gesturing around the drab interview room exasperatedly before returning her furious gaze to Tom, who was still caught on the first part of her sentence.

"What did you just say?"

Zoe sighed, or rather let out a furious hiss of air, before answering, "Did you really not listen to a word I just said? You could have been really injured and-"

"Before that." Tom interjected forcefully.

"Glad to see you have your priorities straight," Zoe said with a roll of her eyes, "Tom you could be facing charges! You may lose your medical license!"

"..Or everything may work out fine." Tom said in a voice which made it clear he had had enough of all the doom and gloom, "As long as Sam is ok I don't give a damn what happens to me."

"You are a complete idiot;" Zoe replied flatly, "Sam is not ok."

Tom sat up a little straighter on the plastic chair and stared at Zoe with a gaze of intense worry.

"Why? Has something changed since the last update I was given? They said she was recovering well but they could have been wrong I guess… Has there been a complication?"

"Tom stop! Sam is going to make a full recovery. I'm not talking about right now; I'm talking about the last couple of months! She lost ten years of her life! It's changed her and only the man upstairs knows why but she seems to trust you, and she lives with you, and you're the only person who can get her to remember! If you end up in jail what's she going to do? Move back into her house? Keep seeing her psychiatrist? Keep going on with her life? She can't! Sam would never admit it but she needs you to help her get her life back on track!"

Tom stared at her for a few moments before answering.

"But the worst of the hangover should be wearing off by now and she should remember what happened, then I'll be out of here!" Tom shouted after his dumbstruck expression had finally worn off.

"Tom wake up! You're a doctor and you know that alcohol and sleeping tablets are a nasty combination- there's no guarantee that she will remember, and when I left her she was still a sleepy, hung over, forgetful mess!" Zoe shouted into his face.

Tom took a moment to absorb these words.

"I bet you took that well." Tom replied flatly.

"I…" Zoe said slowly, her angry composure slipping into a guilty one, "I may have told her if she didn't remember soon I'd kill her."

"Zoe!"

"I was angry! You're a good friend and a great doctor and I don't want to lose you as either!" Zoe said as her defensive composure replaced the guilty one.

"Well then you better hope scaring her half to death makes her remember quicker." Tom replied in a moody tone.

"I'm not sure that would work. I don't even know if she understood me." Zoe replied with worry slipping in to her tone.

"Are you sure there was nothing else wrong with her?" Tom asked with worry in his eyes.

"Yes. We ran every test the hospital would allow on her and I examined her to make sure she wasn't harmed by that man." Zoe said sadly.

"So... she's ok." Tom said, "That's the best news I heard all night."

Zoe was about to reply when a police officer knocked on the door and burst inside.

"Dr Hanna you need to get back to St James ED. Sam Nicholls has suffered a complication."

Zoe was on her feet and out of the door in three seconds flat, leaving Tom to only yell after her in panic.

…


	31. Chapter 31

Sam's head was reeling. She couldn't think straight, let alone see straight. Something was clouding her vision and making her chest tight. It felt as though the entire world was trying to crush her.

If she had spared a thought about what she looked like, she would have realized that her eyes most likely looked like they were threatening to bulge out of her skull and her face was bright red, not to mention she was lashing out at the nurses who were trying to hold her down with desperation- as though they were the ones who were causing her illness.

She didn't know what was happening. The sensation felt familiar, as though it had happened before, but she couldn't place it. If she really cared about finding out why exactly it felt familiar she would have realized that it was because of a part of her memory of the last ten years.

She clasped the oxygen mask a nearby nurse had placed around her mouth like it was a lifeline, pushing it into her face as she tried to get as much oxygen as possible down into her lungs. Every pore of her body was screaming, every inch of her was terrified.

She was hunched forwards now, nurses injecting various chemicals into her through the drip in her left hand to no avail, someone rubbing her back in a vain attempt to calm her. The fact was every doctor in the entire hospital was most likely dealing with another patient or fast asleep in the on-call rooms as there was some kind of major incident last night, so the nurses were stuck dealing with Sam as best as they could. That was until Zoe stormed over.

She shoved Sam backwards and forced her to lie flat on the bed. She then placed a freezing cold stethoscope to her chest and listened for a few seconds before placing a hand on her shoulder.

"Sam you're having a panic attack" Zoe said in a calm voice, "Take some deep breaths."

Sam tried, she really did, but deep breaths were impossible to master. Every time she tried to take one her chest felt as though it was getting tighter.

Sam heard Zoe and watched her sit down on the chair beside her bed.

"Tom's doing as well as can be expected." She said, "The police interview room was drab as hell but he's as alright as he can be."

Sam stared at her, wondering what she was trying to do,

"So I'm guessing you still haven't remembered anything. Pity, as there's no way your mate Ryan is going to drop the charges, not when those charges are his get out of jail free card." Zoe continued, her eyes now closed.

"What… Are… they?" Sam managed to say in between gasps.

"The charges? The ones against Tom are assault, as 'Ryan' claimed that he was hugging you, not holding you after slipping you something, but the blood test ruled that out, and I don't know the ones Ryan but I'm guessing there on the lines of attempted assault."

"Will… Tom… Be… Rel-eased… Soon?" Sam managed to ask.

"Not until you remember what happened last night." Zoe stated matter of factly.

"I can't." Sam replied exasperatedly.

"You better." Warned Zoe, before checking herself and adding, "Sam is you don't remember Tom may lose his medical license and end up in a jail. Everything is hinging on your testimony."

"Can't you… Get him to… Drop the charges?" Sam asked hopefully.

"How exactly? Drop the ones we've made against him in return for him dropping the ones he's made against Tom?" Zoe asked incredulously, "That is never going to happen!"

"We could try if it meant… Getting Tom out." Sam countered.

"But then the man who did this to you would be walking free! Is that what you want? Zoe demanded as she sat a little straighter in her chair.

Sam removed the oxygen mask before replying, "If it gets Tom free, yes, I do want this to happen."

"Sam if you did this you may run into this man in the streets, or he could do the same to another woman and they might not be as lucky as you!"

"That's why we need a plan." Sam replied calmly, "And I think I have one. Can you ask a police officer to come up here?"

"Yes…" Zoe replied suspiciously before narrowing her eyes.

"Good." Sam said as she rested her head back down.

"Well I have absolutely no idea what you're planning but at least one good thing came out of this." Zoe replied as she stood up.

"And what's that?" Sam asked.

"You're no longer having a panic attack." She replied with a grin.

"So that was why you were talking to me as if nothing was wrong!" Sam exclaimed with a smile.

Zoe gave her a grin and headed off to make the phone call.

…

_**Well that's it until this Wednesday! I hope you guys have a great week and I'll see you here then! **_

_**Cholitam: Hey that's great! I hope you get a reply! **_


	32. Chapter 32

The police officer Zoe had called was staring at her like she was either demented or insane. Her eyes were wide, and her lips formed a comical 'O' shape. Sam admitted her plan was a little extreme, but it was the only thing she could think of to get Tom out of jail.

"So let me get this straight. You want to drop the charges against the man who could have seriously hurt you to get your friend out? What if he comes after you?" The police officer exclaimed.

"Believe me, Tom won't let him." Sam replied confidently.

Zoe had gone to the police station to fill in Tom on Sam's condition, and tell him her plan. Sam was fully aware Tom was going to hate it but the didn't care. It was her fault he was sitting in a jail cell right now. If she hadn't decided to spend that £20 note she found on alcohol in a dodgy bar or kiss Tom then none of this would have happened.

"Are you absolutely sure about this?" The police officer asked warily.

"What's your name?" Sam suddenly demanded.

"Lucy. Why?" She asked, confused.

"Do you have friends who would stick by you through anything, Lucy?"

"Well I-"

"That's who Tom is to me. He's my best friend and it's my stupid fault he's currently in one of your cells so if getting him out means putting me in harms way then so be it." Sam replied confidently.

"…Fine. We'll wait until you're discharged and-"

"I'm discharging myself."

"ugh! Just don't collapse on my watch, ok?"

…

The journey to the police station was quick, as it was only a few minutes away from ST James hospital. Sam sat in the car with Lucy in silence, staring out of the window and trying to memorize the landmarks. In a passing thought she realized this was becoming her pastime while sitting in cars.

As soon as Lucy pulled up outside the police station Sam was out of the car and running full pelt towards the entrance. She shoved several awaiting people out of the way in her quest to reach reception as quickly as possible, leaving Lucy to apologize to them as she attempted to keep up with Sam.

"I want to drop the charges against Ryan." Sam shouted in a fluster before realizing that she didn't know her would be attacker's real name.

"Excuse me there were about ten people ahead of you and I have no idea who _Ryan _is," The receptionist replied angrily.

"Don't worry she's with me. I've got this." Lucy said authoritatively as she grabbed Sam by her upper arm and pulled through a door to the left of reception.

She found herself being led through what felt like several hundred doors and corridors until they finally ended up in a shabby looking interview room.

"Sit here." Lucy instructed.

Sam did as she was told, and after Lucy retreated out of the door she came through she found herself alone for a few minutes. After a few moments of daydreaming the door reopened and Tom, accompanied by Lucy and Zoe stepped inside.

"Zoe told me everything." Tom said in an unreadable tone.

"And... what do you think? It may get you out of here," Sam said forcefully, fully aware that that unreadable tone most likely meant that he didn't like the idea one bit.

"Do you have any idea how much danger your putting yourself in?" Tom blurted out after a moment's silence.

"Yes, but you'll be there, and so will Zoe. I'll be fine." Sam said calmly.

"I'll be there until you run away again." Tom said pointedly, "I can protect you, sure, but if you run away again you're going to be a target for 'Ryan' once more, or someone far worse than him."

"I won't run away then." Sam replied.

"You can't promise that."

"Yes I can."

"No, you really can't." Tom said forcefully.

"And why's that?" Sam demanded, her temper beginning to rise, "Tom I'm trying to help you here! Do you really want to be wrapped around this arse's finger for the foreseeable future? He's got you because I can't remember what happened, and I doubt I ever will!"

"Just like the rest of your memory?" Tom asked, his eyes boring deep into hers.

"W-what?" Sam said, taken aback.

"Just like your memory of the last ten years is gone? The fact is Sam every time I need you to remember something, anything, you don't! I need you to remember me, not just what you've learned about me since you woke up after the explosion but everything! I need you to remember us! I told you that we dated when you first woke up but the truth is I didn't tell you everything. I fell in love with you, and I'm still in love with you! I-"

Sam had heard enough. Her legs had carried her out of the door and down a corridor as soon as Tom had said he's in love with her.

"What were you thinking?!" Zoe hissed, "I told you to persuade her out of the idea, not scare her half to death?"

"I…" Tom said, almost lost for words, "I don't know…"

…

_**Happy birthday Cholitam! I hope you have a great day! **_


	33. Chapter 33

Tom was now the one with the aching head. He was standing outside the police station with an expression of bewilderment plastered over his face. Sam had dropped the charges against Ryan on the condition that he dropped the charges against Tom. She had placed herself in danger for him, and in return he had completely terrified her.

Zoe was standing by her car, staring at him expectantly. He was supposed to go home and hope that Sam had had the sense to go back there too, but after the declaration of love he just made that seemed like the last place she would go unless it was to grab her stuff and run a mile, however after one glance at the menacing look on Zoe's face he saw that he had no choice in the matter.

The journey to his house was in relative silence, save for a few low growls emitted by Zoe and a few worried sighs from Tom. When they pulled up outside Tom's house after what seemed like an age but in reality must only have been around ten minutes Zoe immediately got out of the car door and slammed it shut behind her, heading straight to Tom's doorway before glancing back at him impatiently to come and open it.

It turns out that Tom's assumption about how the only reason Sam would enter his house would be to leave was correct, as Sam was packing like a madwoman when Tom and Zoe stepped over the threshold of his house.

"Sam?" Zoe called uncertainly.

"What?" Sam replied coldly as she shoved several items of clothing haphazardly into a backpack.

"Where are you going to go?" Tom asked, taking a step forwards and placing a hand on hers to stop the hasty packing.

Sam pulled away quickly and continued packing for several seconds before answering, "Home."

"Sam you don't even know where home is." Tom countered as gently as he could.

Sam was starting to remind him of a spooked animal. She was fervently collecting up her nesting material and moving to another location before the big scary predator stopped her. With a pang he realized he was the big scary predator.

"She can take me." Sam said, jerking her head towards Zoe without looking up.

Tom looked to Zoe with a look of pleading, silently begging her to make Sam reconsider.

"That's fine, Sam. We'll go when you're ready."

Following a couple of minute's awkward silence as Sam continued to bundle up her clothes she finally moved out of the room and Tom rounded on Zoe.

"What the hell?!" Tom hissed.

"Tom I think you've done enough damage." Zoe replied in a voice which Tom read as both a warning and anger.

"Damage? I know my timing was crap but... but _she kissed me! _ It's not like I hurt her!"

Zoe looked about ready to blow up then and there.

"Didn't hurt her? Tom are you blind? She's recovering form losing her memory and now the one person she thinks she can trust is telling her that he loves her! She's got a lot going on at the moment and now she has one more thing added to the chaos in her head!" Zoe hissed.

"I didn't mean to… i-it just came out…" Tom replied, at as loss for what to say.

At that moment Sam re entered the room and without making eye contact with Tom headed towards the door. When Zoe didn't follow she made an impatient snarling noise.

"Sam?" Tom called as she and Zoe walked out of the door.

"What?" She called back in an unreadable voice.

"I-I'm sorry." Tom said, defeated.

"Just… Just leave me alone."

With that the door swung shut, leaving Tom in an empty house for the first time in a long time.

Tom knew exactly how to relieve the tension in his shoulders and his aching heart. He walked in to the kitchen in a daze and opened several cupboards before he found the one that contained the half drunk bottle of vodka he was looking for.

After rooting around in draws and cupboards for a glass with his free hand and failing to find one he headed back to the living room and collapsed on the couch, taking a large swig from the bottle and cringing as it stung his throat as he did so.

After a few more mouthfuls he was beginning to feel his worries slip away, along with his sobriety. Words and images swam around his thoughts like a shoal of fish, most of the images being of him and Sam before they broke up, others of Zoe staring at him menacingly and looking furious about the timing of his declaration of love.

"'am." Tom mumbled before giggling.

He had tried to say Sam but instead had ended up slurring something that sounded like 'ham'. His voice must be just as messed up as his head, he reasoned with another giggle at that.

One last ounce of sobriety reminded him that he never giggled, and so instead he tried a hearty laugh which reminded him of a sailor or a pirate after reaching their destination or coming across a haul of fish. He giggled at the fact he appeared to have fish on the brain.

The goofy smile that had been plastered on his face slipped slightly as she remembered why he had been drinking in the first place. It slipped further still as he was reminded of the jail cell.

"Sam…" Was the last thing he said before drifting into a drunken sleep.

…

_**Thanks a lot for reading and reviewing so far guys! There's plenty more to come! **_


	34. Chapter 34

"Your couch is the most uncomfortable thing known to mankind."

Sam had been a disgruntled wreck last night so naturally Zoe, her anger at Sam apparently forgotten, had invited herself for an overnight stay. Little did she know before she declared this that Sam was not in possession of a house with a spare room, and so Zoe was forced to put up with the world's lumpiest couch.

"I told you the floor would have been more comfortable." Sam replied as she sipped her morning coffee.

"I am wearing a £300 jacket. There is no way I am putting it anywhere near your floors- which I may add look like they haven't been cleaned in months."

"Well it has been a couple since I was in here." Sam replied pointedly.

"Then how come every other surface doesn't even have a speck of dust on it? In fact this place looks like it hasn't even been lived in!" Zoe asked, staring around her.

"Well by what Tom told me I've spent three quarters of my time in the hospital and the rest of it in the pub. I think the on call room must have looked more like home than this place at that point."

The act of dropping his name into a conversation made her mood distinctly frostier. Sam had resigned to not thinking about Tom, as every time she did it made her feel like throwing something and a million and one questions began buzzing around her mind. Did start to love her after her memory loss or did her love her beforehand? Was he ever planning on telling her? Why did he tell her _then_?

Sam was immediately snapped out of her stupor by Zoe moaning and groaning as she placed her hands at the pains of her spine and leant back, stretching out the aches and pains Sam's couch had caused her. When she was finished she moved passed Sam and into the kitchen, grabbing a mug and pouring herself some coffee. She thenn gulped it all down in one session before moving back to the living room and slumped down on her most hated item of furniture in the room.

"What are you planning on doing today?" Zoe asked with a small sigh.

Sam shrugged before replying, "No clue."

"Do you want to go and see him?" Zoe asked, remembering that Sam was far more likely to answer if his name was kept out of the conversation.

"NO." Sam said firmly.

"Fair enough. So what _are _you going to do today?"

Sam took a moment to look around the room for inspiration before replying, "The vacuuming."

"Good idea." Zoe replied, staring at the dust carpet once again.

In truth vacuuming was the only thing she could think of that meant she didn't have to talk to Zoe, as the noise should put pay to that. Sam didn't want to think about Tom, let alone talk about him, but unfortunately her mind had other ideas.

She hadn't been able to stop thinking about him since he made his confession of love. Those unanswered questions were going to keep bugging her until she got some answers, and unfortunately for him getting answers meant having actual human contact with him, or at least picking up the phone.

Right now Sam knew that no good would come of her talking to Tom, as she was far too angry at him. He had let her stay in his house as a guest, had supported her through his whole nightmare and even let her kiss him when all the while he loved her and he didn't think to bring that particular piece of information up at any point. Wonderful.

"Hello? Where are you? At home? You sound like- What? You idiot! Stay where you are I'm coming over… No I don't think Sam wants anything to do with you right now."

As soon as Sam turned the hoover off she was greeted by the sound of Zoe talking to someone in a hushed tone.

"That was Tom wasn't it?" Sam asked, already knowing the answer.

"Yes… And he apparently thought that a bottle of vodka was the answer to all his troubles last night so now he has the hangover from hell. Do you want to come-"

"No."

"Well then I'll see you when I get back. This should only take a couple of hours." Zoe said, making her way towards the door after straightening her jacket.

"See you then." Sam replied as she listened for the shutting of her front door.

When she finally heard that sound she breathed out a sigh of relief. No more Tom talk for a while.

Sam quickly discovered however that even though Zoe was gone and every distraction was removed she couldn't stop her mind from going back to Tom. She found herself thinking about that kiss, how drunk she had gotten after she had kissed him and who had saved her, not to mention the fact that when she first woke up despite not knowing that they knew each other she seemed more than happy to talk to him, even if it was to call him a boy toy.

Maybe those feelings Tom had for Sam were reciprocated in some way?

…

_**That's all for now, folks! **_

_**See you next weekend! **_


	35. Chapter 35

It was now Tom's turn to face the wrath of Zoe's voice after a night of tossing and turning with a head that felt like it had been exposed to drumsticks. He had listened to her ranting and raving for a few minutes before sighing and deciding he was now thirsty for something that wouldn't cause him to throw up on an empty stomach and walked over to the kitchen sink after grabbing a nearby cup.

Tap water, in Tom's opinion, was about the foulest thing you could possibly drink or rather it was on a normal day, but after downing a bottle of something which made you cringe with every swig he decided that it wasn't so bad in the present moment.

"…You have to be one of the stupidest people I have ever met in my entire life. What made you think drinking away your troubles would work? All that stuff does it give you the biggest hangover known to mankind! I can't believe…"

Tom tuned in and out of Zoe's ongoing rant, silently cursing himself for inflicting the wrath of Zoe upon his pounding head. Through past experience Tom already knew Zoe had quite a stamina and could keep a constant full blown yell up for at the very least an hour. As he thought about this it felt like he has sentenced himself to a banging head for the rest of the day, as the painkillers he ingested a few minutes before Zoe arrived had yet to kick in.

After moving over to the sofa and pretending to listen to Zoe's screeching for another few minutes Tom finally decided enough was enough. He stood up, grabbed Zoe by the shoulders and stared at her for a moment before yelling as loud as he could.

"Zoe! SHUT UP!"

"Don't you tell me to-"

"I just did!" Tom shouted, removing a hand from her shoulder and placing it on his forehead.

Apparently Tom's brain wasn't fond of the shouting as the pounding was now harder and more painful.

"You think you deserve the easy way out after what you did? You're a fool!" Zoe yelled.

"Zoe I have the worst headache known to mankind thanks to your voice and my hangover and Sam isn't speaking to me. I wouldn't by a long shot call this the easy way out." Tom said as calmly as he could muster as he moved to sit back down.

Zoe let out an irritated sigh as she sat down next to him.

"You know you bought this all upon yourself."

"Yes, Zoe, I am fully aware of that," Tom replied in an irritated tone, "Care to tell me something that I don't know?"

"How about I ask you something that I have no idea what the answer is to. Why the hell did you think that the middle of a police station was the place to tell Sam that you're in love with her?" Zoe asked in a voice that for the first time since she arrived didn't make Tom's head hurt.

"You were the one who told me to make sure she didn't put herself in harm's way and refuse her offer to get me out of there." Tom replied pointedly.

"Yes, but I meant persuade her out of a terrible idea, not tell someone who barely knows any of us that you're in love with her!"

"What's so wrong with me admitting how I feel?" Tom demanded, feeling his temper rise.

"How many relationships were you in before you were 20?" Zoe asked with yet another sigh.

"What's that got to do with-?"

"Just answer the damn question!" Zoe interrupted.

"I don't know. A couple." Tom replied, struggling to remember.

"Exactly. In her mind Sam's still 20. She has all these memories of school boyfriends, but not any of adult relationships like her marriage to Dylan. She's inexperienced and she's still trying to remember the last 10 years of her life, someone confessing feelings like that to her right now was probably the last thing she needed."

"So you're saying I just confused her," Tom said slowly, "But she could still feel the same way?"

Zoe let out an annoyed grunt before continuing, "Tom listen to me! She's not ready for this! You need to give her time to remember who she is before she starts jumping into any relationships!"

"But you and I both know that may never happen!" Tom countered as his temper was raised another notch.

"Her memory loss is psychological. You managed to get her to remember everything about the bombing by tapping into an area of her mind she didn't want to go, we just need to keep doing that until-"

"Until she gets angry with us and runs off? Because that's what's going to happen!" Tom shouted, wincing as his head gave him a particularly nasty throb for his troubles.

"She only ran off last time because she scared herself by kissing you! You already said that you think she did that because she was trying to remember your previous relationship and finding out that you're in love with her still after doing that was most likely not what she wanted to hear!"

"I know but _she_ still kissed _me_!" Tom countered, "I didn't start this! She did!"

"Tom like I just said she kissed you to see if she could remember her life. If you kissed her there would have been real feelings behind that kiss! It's totally different!" Zoe replied.

"Zoe we can keep arguing about this until we're blue in the face. Fact is I love her. I can't change that. If she doesn't want to see me then It's going to hurt but fine. I don't want her getting upset. Just tell her there are no hard feelings and she doesn't have to see me anymore. I'll move away if that makes things easier for her."

…

_**Words can't describe how happy I am that it's the weekend. It's been a long and stressful week but I made it to the other side! Yay! **_

_**Thanks for reading as always everyone! **_


	36. Chapter 36

Sam was wondering what exactly she was supposed to be doing. Now that she had cleaned the floor in every room and polished every surface not to mention solved the issue of the lumpy couch by turning the cushions over there was nothing to do other than sit on said couch and go back to endlessly watching daytime TV.

The cleaning had helped her keep her mind off of Tom for long enough to actually start thinking straight again, but TV programs hadn't gotten any more engaging since she last watched them a couple of days ago and Zoe was around 2 hours late. One part of Sam's mind was happy for this, as she would definitely be talking non-stop about Tom for the next few hours and Sam needed a break but she couldn't stop thinking about him anyway so it didn't really make much of a difference.

She was worried that the reason Zoe was late was because there was something more wrong with him than a hangover. Maybe they were in the ED and Tom was lying in the same bed she was a few days ago, or maybe he was dying of alcohol poisoning. Sam shook herself and grabbed the TV remote, flicking through the channels before settling on the teletubbies because it was noisy enough and stupid enough to keep her distracted from her thoughts.

It was this particular program that Zoe was greeted with after ringing the doorbell and walking into the living room as soon as Sam let her in.

"Er… are you feeling alright?" She asked as she watched the teletubbies jumping around on the screen for a moment.

"Yeah It just helped distracting me from… never mind. How was he?" Sam asked, trying to keep every hint of worry from her voice.

"He's… He's upset. He's saying that if you don't want to see him then he'll move away so you don't have to see him." Zoe replied.

"What? That's not what I want at all!" Sam nearly shouted.

"Then I think you better tell him that because he's under the impression you hate his guts." Zoe said sadly.

"I… Can I borrow your phone?" Sam asked, already holding out her hand.

"Sure…" Zoe replied as she fished it out of her handbag and handed it to her.

It took Sam mere moments to find Tom's number in the contacts list and hit dial. It took far longer than a moment for Tom to make the effort to answer, however.

"Zoe if you've called to shout at me again, don't. I get it, I'm the jerk who-"

"Uh.. Hey." Sam said as casually as she could muster.

"Hi." Tom replied, awkwardness clear in his voice.

"Don't move away." Sam said calmly as she fought to ignore the butterflies in her stomach.

"Sam if me being here is awkward for you then-" Tom began.

"No. You're my friend. I want you to stay." Sam said forcefully.

For a moment Sam swore she could hear Tom's thoughts, as she heard him thinking about the fact he had called her a friend and almost caught the pang of disappointment at the word. In reality all Tom did was sigh.

"Sam are you sure? I'll still keep my distance." Tom said.

"Don't worry about keeping your distance. Come around this evening and we'll have dinner." Sam said before her mind had caught up to what she was saying.

Sam glanced over at Zoe before listening to Tom's answer, as her mouth was a perfect 'O' shape.

"Are you sure about that?" Tom asked awkwardly, "I mean I don't want to make things any more awkward…"

"I'm sure." Sam said with a definite air.

"Well ok then… I'll see you tonight." Tom said.

"See you then." Sam replied before disconnecting the call.

"What the hell?!" Zoe hissed as soon as Sam had handed her phone back.

Sam stared at the floor for a moment, trying to work out what had happened. Had some primal instinct just taken over and caused her to think about dating Tom because he was the hottest available guy she knew? Was this instinct just her mind playing tricks or was it something more sinister like a brain tumour? Was she going mad? After all, she had just thought she could hear Tom's thoughts though the other end of the phone.

After deciding that her previous trail of thought was ludicrous, she stood up straight and stared at Zoe and said,

"Because he's my friend. He's been there from the beginning and I don't want to lose him as a friend because he's attracted to me."

"And what is this dinner proves to be the most awkward thing known to mankind?" Zoe asked pointedly.

"It won't be. We'll make this _thing_ work."

…

_**I think you're all going to like my next update! See you next weekend! **_


	37. Chapter 37

As soon as the doorbell rang Sam felt the pit of nerves in her stomach reach a fever pitch. It felt as though there as a million and one butterflies fluttering around her abdomen and the sensation was almost bad enough to make her throw up.

Noticing Sam's obvious nerves, Zoe left the dinner table she was preparing and went to open the door, greeting Tom with a frosty 'hello' before standing aside to allow him in. He entered the kitchen and gave Sam a small smile, allowing her to see him for the first time since the police station. He looked worn out and also nervous, but other than that he seemed fine.

The small smile playing about his lips eased Sam's own nerves just enough for her to release the breath she had no idea she had been holding.

"Hey." Tom said quietly.

"Hi." Sam replied, giving him a small smile.

Following some polite conversation about the weather and how terrible TV programs are nowadays followed by a joke from Zoe about how Sam was watching children's TV the dinner table fell into silence save for the clattering of cutlery on plates as everyone cut up and ate their food. Sam decided that as they reached the end of their dinner it was time for her to start up some more conversation.

"Are you having any luck finding us jobs?" Sam asked Zoe.

"Maybe. St James say that they could probably take on around half our nurses part time and the rest full time once they have recovered, though they said they won't take any unless they attend counselling sessions. As for doctors…. they're saying they will take on anyone who wasn't injured full time and assess anyone who was to see if they are still able to do their jobs and…"

Suddenly Zoe excused herself form the table to answer a phone call that she muttered something about 'sorting all our problems' before stepping into the living room. Both Sam and Tom stared after her with a confused expression on their faces before turning back to the dinner table and each other.

"So…" Tom said slowly.

"So…." Repeated Sam.

They both smiled at each other for a moment before Tom opened his mouth to speak.

"How are you doing?" He asked with concern in his eyes.

"I'm ok I guess. How are you?" She asked back.

"Alright minus a headache." He replied with a smile.

"I'll bet. Vodka Tom? _Really_?" Sam said in mock disdain with an amused expression.

"Yeah... not sure what exactly I was thinking." He said while scratching the back of his head with an awkward grin.

Just then Zoe let out a shriek and Sam and Tom both left the table and rushed into the living room.

"Are you ok?" Sam exclaimed, placing a hand on her shoulder as she stared at her phone in an expression Sam assumed to be disbelief.

"We have to drive down to Caterham first thing tomorrow." Zoe said in an unreadable voice.

"Why?" Sam asked.

"All three of us?" Tom asked at almost the same time as Sam.

"Yes all three of us and Mark James. Apparently the family of the man who created the bombs want to give us some kind of compensation." Zoe said, still staring at her phone.

"Why me?" Tom asked, "I mean I barely had anything to do with this guy!"

"That's a question you'll have to save for tomorrow. In the mean time I think we better get some sleep. So Tom…" Zoe began.

"Tom can stay here." Sam said quickly.

"Are you sure?" Tom and Zoe asked simultaneously.

"I'm sure. There's sofa in the spare room that pulls out into a bed," Sam said, warranting an evil look from Zoe before adding, "I only found it earlier when I was cleaning."

"Fine." Zoe said curtly as Tom nodded.

They all quickly cleaned away the food they haven't eaten after estimating that they only had around seven hours before they had to leave again. Sam got upstairs and collapsed on her bed after her shower without bothering to get under the covers, as she was determined to get enough sleep to ensure that she didn't feel like a zombie for most of tomorrow.

Unfortunately her mind didn't want to shut off….

…

_Sam was running through the hospital behind Mark like there was no tomorrow. In reality there may well not be for the inhabitants of Holby City hospital. As soon as they entered recess they knew it was probably already too late, as Sam could see the bombs through the window. Mark applied the chemical as quickly as he could but it was clear he wasn't going to be fast enough. He signalled to Sam to run and tore out of recess after her, shouting to everyone nearby to start running too. _

_The scene dissolved and Sam found herself standing in a dark room somewhere in Afghanistan, a man pointing a gun at her back. He was whispering something to her that she couldn't quite hear, but whatever it was was terrifying her, forcing her to hold back the wave of fear that was threatening to overcome her. _

_Again the scene changed, and Sam found herself standing back in the ED. Everything stood still around her yet she could still move. She walked over to where confused doctors and nurses were just about to start running, and she saw herself and mar, a motion blur frozen in time. Suddenly the whole scene started to move around her and she found herself standing right outside the ED doors as everything exploded…_

Sam awoke screaming but found that her cries were quickly stifled by someone stroking her hair in a soothing motion and muttering comforting words in her ear. Whoever this was were holding her like a child, and she found herself moving so she could sit on their lap as they rubbed her back. She was drenched in sweat and shaking like a leaf, but this person had a strange calming effect and she could feel all her fear slipping away.

"Do you want me to stay?" Said a voice that Sam immediately recognised as Tom.

Sam opened her eyes and looked up at him, his calming gaze settling her fears until they were pretty much nonexistent.

"Stay." Sam said as she allowed him to tuck her under the covers and climb in himself.

…

_**Something tells me you've all been waiting for this… **_

_**I'll be updating from now until Monday (At least) seeing as my teachers left off the homework a bit and I have been writing chapters through the week :) **_


	38. Chapter 38

Tom was expecting some amount of awkwardness at the very least when Sam awoke but instead she simply sat up in bed, gently moving his arms off of her in the process, and gave him a small smile.

"Morning." She said in a perfectly calm voice.

"Good morning-just about" Tom replied after looking at the clock on adjacent wall.

It was just gone one.

"Thanks for last night." Sam said in a voice that struck Tom as bizarrely calm for all the fuss she had made about his proclamation of love.

"No problem. What happened last night?" He asked gently as he also sat up.

"I... I don't know," Sam replied with a frown, "It was a memory of what had happened just before the bomb exploded, me and Mark running, and then it switched to something in Afghanistan before switching back to the moment before the bomb exploding again except everything was frozen in time for a few seconds."

"Odd…" Tom said, a frown also appearing on his face, "Are you feeling ok now? When I came in last night you were shrieking."

"I was? I'm fine now, in fact I feel strangely… calm," Sam replied before adding, "Did Zoe hear?"

"I doubt it. She was in a deep sleep when I went down to get some water just before I heard you." Tom said with a small smile.

"Good. It's best she doesn't know for now." Sam said firmly.

"_Oi! You two! We need to get up and get going!" _Shouted Zoe as if on cue.

"Why don't you want her to know?" Tom asked as they both started to get out of her bed.

"I just don't. I'm using the bathroom first so you'll have to wait a moment." Sam replied before hurrying from the room and closing the door behind her.

…

The eight hour car journey to Caterham was uncomfortable for everyone. Mark had told informed everyone he couldn't come as he was in the process of moving homes and so asked Zoe to act as his proxy. Zoe herself could've cut the tension between Tom and Sam like a knife, and wouldn't stop probing them for answers the whole way there. On more than one occasion Tom almost cracked, but a glare form Sam muted him just before the words came out.

The tension got so thick Zoe decided she couldn't take another second in the car, and parked a few minutes away from their destination. Zoe quickly regretted this decision, as the place she had parked meant they had to climb up a particularly steep and long hill.

"Zoe why are you... torturing us?" Sam wheezed.

"Torture?" Zoe spat, "That car…was torture…and besides…you two...don't smoke…"

"You didn't mention…This hill!" Sam countered, gesturing around.

"They don't..call this place..Caterham-On-The…Hill for.. Nothing…" Zoe replied.

"You missed off the hill part." Tom replied, apparently the fittest out of the trio.

When they all reached the top of the hill Tom was forced to stop and allow Sam and Zoe to regain their breath before continuing on their way. It wasn't long, however, before they were called back to the top of the hill as they had walked past the person they were supposed to be meeting.

"Over here!" Called out a woman in a coat that looked more expensive than all the clothes Tom, Sam and Zoe were wearing combined.

"Were you the one who asked to meet us?" Zoe asked as soon as they had got back to where she was standing.

It was only when they came in full view of her did they realize why exactly they had overlooked her as a possible candidate of the family of the man who had worked in a fairly low paid job in an NHS hospital. Behind her stood a black limousine, complete with driver waiting patiently. The woman herself was wearing a fur coat and must have been in her 70s.

"Hello." She said in a posh accent, "I am here to offer you my humblest apologies for my nephew's actions."

"Nephew?!" Sam and Tom exclaimed simultaneously.

"Yes. I am fully aware this will come as quite a shock but the man set on blowing up several hospitals is indeed my nephew." Confirmed the woman.

"Why are we here?" Zoe asked.

"I will explain all when a Mr Mark James arrives. I have been made aware from news reports that you are Zoe Hanna, Samantha Nicholls and Tom Kent." The woman said gracefully.

"Mark James can't come. He asked me to stand in as his proxy." Zoe informed her.

"Ah. Very well. Then I shall proceed. I would like to start by apologizing for dragging you all the way down to Caterham but posting what I am about to give Samantha and Mark seemed a little impolite and also the reason I have invited you and Mark here is because it appears, though many suffered far more severe injuries that you two acquired you were the ones who were brave enough to stand up to my nephew. Zoe Hanna and Tom Kent are here because I believe you are all quite close to one and other, or at least you all work fairly closely with Mark and Samantha." The woman continued.

"Give us?" Sam questioned.

With that the woman snapped her fingers and the driver stepped forwards, taking two sealed letters with a flourish of his hand. He then handed them to the woman who in turn handed one to Sam and Mark's to Zoe.

"What's this...?" Sam asked as she and Zoe opened the letters.

"Thirty million pounds each for the damages inflicted upon you and Mark by my family. If thirty million is too little please do tell now."

No one spoke.

…

_**I wonder if any of you can guess what the money is going towards…**_


	39. Chapter 39

Sam was staring at the zeros on the cheque with the same wide eyes that Zoe was. It took Sam a moment to find her voice and when she did she wasn't quite sure what to say. What _do_ you say to someone who just made you a millionaire 30 times over?

"Thank you!" Zoe said, looking to Sam as though she was answering for her.

"Y-yes. Thank you... But I can't possibly accept-" Sam began, holding the cheque out for her to take back.

"Nonsense," Replied the woman as she waved the cheque away, "When you reach my age and have as much money as I do, £60 million pounds is only a small dent in my bank account, to say nothing of my family's."

"So your nephew must be quite rich…" Sam sad slowly.

"I'm afraid I haven't exactly been transparent when it comes to him. He was disowned more than twenty years ago due to a gambling addiction which wiped out nearly half my family's money, and took on an entirely different persona- changed his accent, his dress and his name all to avoid the debt collectors who were hounding him for money."

"£60 _million _isn't even half of the money you-"

"How did you get rid of them?" Sam asked, cutting off Zoe.

"We discovered through the use of a private investigator that the gambling agency your estranged nephew was illegal and so we were able to get them prosecuted." The woman replied after staring at Zoe haughtily for a moment.

"Well let me assure you that I don't need money in recover to recover from this, and I'm sure Mark doesn't either." Sam said kindly, making to hand the cheque back again.

"My dear, forgive me for probing but I also learned from the media that you have lost a significant portion of your memory due to that ordeal. Please do feel free to hire the money to find the very best doctors to fix this problem." The woman said kindly.

"She is one of the best Doctors around." Tom said after staring at the cheque in Sam's hands for a long moment.

Sam turned to Tom and gave him a grateful smile. It was quickly becoming clear to her that this money was hers no matter what she thought of accepting such a large cheque from someone she barely knew. Following a ten minute long monologue from the woman which had pretty much convinced Sam that she would feel guilty if she did _not _take the money, she finally accepted the gift and placed the oversized cheque in her pocket. After saying their goodbyes the trio then began to head back down the hill and into Zoe's car.

The journey back home was a quiet one, with Sam staring out of the window to avoid taking the cheque out and staring at the zeros for the thirtieth time. She was also avoiding looking at the person who was sitting in the seat next to her who apparently needed her to tell him she was fine once for every member of the population of the UK for him to believe it.

"Are you _sure_ you're alright?" Tom implored.

"Tom. I just got given a life changing amount of money from a woman who looked like she was about as old as the numbers on this cheque. No I am not fine. I am somewhere in between shocked and confused and I really don't want to talk right now, especially to the person I shared a bed with last night."

"WHAT?!"

Zoe had been quiet for so long that Sam had almost forgotten she was there.

"Zoe it's not what you think-" Tom began.

"You two _slept _together last night?!" Zoe yelled incredulously.

"Yes, Zoe. SLEEP being the operative word. I had a nightmare and I got upset. Tom slept beside me to make sure I was ok." Sam said in a warning tone.

"Mmm hmm." Was her disbelieving reply.

"Zoe just say whatever it is you want to because I know one way or another we're going to hear it anyway." Tom said impatiently.

"Fine. Sam, you like Tom. You may not want to admit it but I know you do, and deep down I know you know you do." Zoe said in a made Sam want to hit her.

"You don't know what's going on in my head Zoe." Sam said coldly.

"No you're right, for the most part I have no idea what the hell you're thinking, but you're forgetting I've been at this ED for longer than both of you and I have never seen you light up the way you do when you're around each other around anyone else."

"'Light up?'" Sam repeated amusedly.

"Yes, Sam, as stupid as it sounds you literally do light up around each other. Tom was the one you trusted when you first woke up, he was the one you stayed with and now he's the one you rely on when you're scared. You could have told him to leave but you accepted his help happily. Not to mention you've been moody as hell since you left his house. You join the dots," Zoe said as she stared at them in the rear-view mirror, "But I really shouldn't be the one talking here, that should be you two."

"Us two?"

"Yes. Talk this out. Figure out your feelings for one and other. Don't destroy something that could be beautiful before it's even had a chance and most of all- give me a break."

…

_**Hint to my last question: It would cost far more than £60 million to rebuild a hospital… Guess again! ;) **_


	40. Chapter 40

"No… NO!" Sam shrieked, trapped in yet another nightmare.

Tom dashed out of the spare room as soon as he heard the sound, having kept his door ajar so he could listen out for any sounds of distress. When he entered Sam's room she was thrashing around so much she was threatening to fall off of the bed, causing him to lunge forwards and hold her side just as she was about to. She awoke after a few seconds, staring at him blankly for a moment before consciousness finally fully kicked in.

"What time is it…?" She mumbled as Tom gently helped her back onto the bed.

"Half four." Tom replied.

Sam turned around and stared at him wide-eyed before asking, "In the morning?"

"'fraid so…" Tom replied with a small smile.

The journey back from Caterham had taken far longer than originally anticipated, as they had trouble getting north of London due to traffic jams left, right and centre. The eight hour journey had increased to a 12 hour one, and so everyone had only collapsed into bed a few short hours ago.

"Sorry for waking you…" Sam said with an apologetic smile.

"No worries. I had my door open so I could listen out for you." Tom said gently as he sat on the edge of the bed.

"That's sweet of you... thanks." Sam said, her smile growing larger.

"Would you like me to leave?" Tom asked once again, making to stand up.

"Can you stay again? I don't seem to have the nightmares when you're around." Sam replied with an uncharacteristically shy demeanour.

"No problem." He replied with a smile as he clambered under the covers she was holding up for him.

They laid there for a few minutes in silence, neither so much as trying to get back to sleep. Tom could only assume what Sam was thinking, but he himself was thinking about what Zoe said. It had been playing on his mind since that long car journey.

"So…" Sam said slowly.

"I've been thinking," Tom began, "About what Zoe said."

"Me too." Sam replied.

"What were you thinking?" Tom asked, suddenly nervous about her answer.

"I… I think she's right in _some_ respects." Sam said slower still.

"Like what?"

"Like how when I woke up you were the one I trusted, and I stayed at your house. You were also the one who saved me from that freak in the bar."

"Yeah I'm still not happy with you for getting that freak out of jail, by the way. He could still come after you." Tom said in a warning tone.

"I know you're not happy." Sam replied, "But think of it this way: With all the money I've got I could hire an army of security guards."

"True.." Tom replied, though in truth an army of burly security guards did not do much to ease his fear.

"Or I could just have you punch anyone who comes within a five foot radius of me other than Zoe or anyone else we know."

"Also true." Tom said with a small smile.

"But seriously… What the hell should I do with all this money? Move into a mansion and never work again?" Sam asked, turning on her side to face him.

"I don't know," Replied Tom as he did the same, "What's Mark doing?"

"He's using some of it to buy a bigger house and donating a massive sum to charity," Sam replied, "Well according to Zoe that's what he's doing anyway. When she called him all I heard was someone on the other end of the call shrieking like a girl."

Tom laughed, which immediately set Sam off. They could feel the tension that had followed Zoe's speech about how they would be perfect for each other melting away to the point where it became a distant memory. When they both stopped they found themselves staring at one and other, both with intent in their eyes.

They must have stayed like this for over a minute, each trying to read the other's thoughts. Tom didn't want to be the one to make the first move as he didn't want to have gotten completely the wrong end of the stick about what this moment meant and freak her out. It looked like Sam was having a few reservations of her own.

"We don't have to do this." Tom said at last, breaking the spell that was locking their eyes together.

"I know, but…." Sam began.

"But what?"

"But I want it to mean something this time. I don't want to kiss you until… until we've figured this out."

"Okay so… do you want to go on a date?" Tom asked nervously.

"Yeah," Sam replied, "I do. But do you know what I really want to do right now?"

"What?"

"Sleep for around 12 hours straight."

"Same here."

…

_**Lol houses and weddings…. **_

_**Let me clarify: You guys were closer when you said rebuild the hospital but they don't have the money, there's tonnes and tonnes of rubble there and it would take a couple of years at least. What could they do alternatively…?**_


	41. Chapter 41

The day didn't begin until the afternoon for Sam and Tom, and it was late afternoon at that. Zoe had forced herself up at around 10am and made a point of moaning about them being lazy. Naturally they both ignored this, too intent on finding something to eat, but unfortunately Zoe appeared oblivious to the fact no one was listening to her.

"…You've worked longer shifts than that car journey and have still been expected back a couple of hours later. I never expected two doctors to be so lazy!"

"I don't remember ever working…" Sam reminded her pointedly.

"True…" Zoe admitted, "But that's still no excuse!"

"Zoe do us both a favour and shut it." Tom said firmly, apparently grouchy from oversleeping,

"Touchy touchy…" Zoe muttered under her breath.

"Zoe! Shut up!"

After deciding that they wanted something a little more substantial than toast Tom called a pizza delivery service. Fifteen minutes later they were all sitting on the sofa eating pizza, including Zoe despite the fact she had just eaten. After eating a couple of slices each everyone seemed more awake and relaxed, particularly Tom in Sam's eyes. Zoe decided now was the time to move on to the serious conversation.

"Have you got any idea what you are going to do with that money?" She asked.

"No clue. When's mark collecting his cheque?"

"He said he'll be round tomorrow." Zoe replied.

"I'm still trying to get my head around the fact that I'm a millionaire. A £30 million millionaire." Sam said in a stunned voice.

"So am I," Zoe admitted, "You would never have to work again."

"What am I going to do instead? Sit around here 24/7 or move into a mansion? No thanks!" Sam replied, brushing the idea away.

"Good! Because you're a valuable member of my ED even without all your marbles." Zoe said with a wink.

"Oi!" Sam said with a grin.

"But seriously…. What _are _you going to do?" Tom asked.

"I really wish I knew. Maybe I could donate it to a charity?" Sam suggested.

"Or you could have a look at getting some therapy, see if that would get your memory back." Zoe suggested.

"After that psychiatrist? No thanks!" Sam said loudly.

"Sam it wouldn't be like that. There are a re lot of things we can try like small procedures or finding old photos and creating a timeline of memories and…"

"'_Small procedures?' _You are not cutting into my brain," Sam said flatly, "End of discussion."

"It would only involve cutting-" Began Tom.

"_End of discussion." _Sam repeated in a tone which warned them not to cross her.

"But it wouldn't-"

"I said END of discussion!" Sam shouted.

…

Soon after the discussion was ended Sam retreated back into her room and didn't come at all in the following half an hour. A gentle knock at her door from a worried Tom roused her from her thoughts, which surprisingly had nothing to do with the previous conversation.

"I was never traditional." Sam stated as soon as she opened the door.

"Er.. What?" Tom asked as he stepped past her and into the room.

"I didn't go the whole dating route with school boyfriends; we just kind of... clicked and hung out 24/7" Sam clarified.

"Uh.. That may have worked in secondary school but we're in the real world now so…" Tom began.

"I still don't want to date." Sam replied, "Even though I did with Dylan, we used to go out every weekend."

"Why not if you did it with… Dylan… Wait what?!" Tom exclaimed, grabbing her shoulders.

"What?" Sam said defensively, shrugging his hands off.

"You said you hated him when you were at school with him."

"Yeah I did. This was later." Sam replied, still confused.

"Later as in… within the last ten years?" Tom said as the excitement in his voice reached a fever pitch.

"Yeah... so?"

"Zoe, get in here!" Tom shouted towards the door.

"What?" Zoe asked impatiently after she also entered the room, "I'm trying to clean up the mess you two left in the kitchen."

"She's remembering!" Tom said excitedly.

"Remembering what?" Sam asked, still confused.

"Sam you said you hated Dylan over ten years ago but dated him within the last decade! You're remembering parts of your life and you don't even realize it!" Tom shouted.

Sam stared at him and then moved her shocked expression to Zoe. How was she remembering things and not realizing it?

…

_**You're all getting closer but no one's got it right! **_

_**I will update again in the next few days, I'm not sure when exactly because I'm supposed to have a school trip tomorrow and the heat is making me ill! **_


	42. Chapter 42

Sam's head was banging, except this time it wasn't a drugged and drunken night out or a blow to the head that was causing it. All this medical talk was going over her head for she had a feeling was the first time in a while. Sure, she remembered everything she'd learned while training as a doctor even if she didn't actually remember the training itself but all this talk of psychology was being spoken far too quickly and was far too boring for her to keep up with.

Sitting in an office that was about the size of a garbage can wasn't helping either, for the trained psychiatrist and Tom arguing like there was no tomorrow across a tiny desk and Zoe sitting beside her staring at the ceiling with a forlorn expression was making the impulse to either get up and run or scream at everyone to shut up stronger by the second.

"Mr Kent you're not listening to me! I'm not going to know more until-" Began the psychiatrist who looked almost as cheesed off as Zoe.

"_Doctor_! I'm a freaking doctor!" Tom yelled, "Just like you're supposed to be but so far you haven't given us one useful piece of information!"

"I can't give you any until we've run extensive tests!" He countered angrily, folding his arms.

"Whoa back up there. What to do mean 'extensive tests'?" Sam asked in a tone which made it all to clear if she didn't like what she was hearing she'd be gone in the blink of an eye.

Apparently she didn't like it, for the psychiatrist only got through a couple of sentences before Sam was running for the door, something about a neurologist and an explorative operation was apparently more than enough of a reason to leave.

Tom and Zoe hurtled down the ever confusing corridors of ST James' hospital after her, but only managed to catch up to her after they got completely lost. Following a brief moment of staring around looking for signs they recognised they finally found a department they knew would lead them out once they got there.

The journey home was awkward at best. Sam was refusing to look at Tom, irritated at him for dragging her all the way to the hospital over something that felt insignificant to her. Zoe was sighing like she had just run a marathon, clearly annoyed at the tension in the car.

"Can you two just kiss and make up or something?" Zoe asked moodily as soon as they got in the house.

"Gross." Was Sam's response before she stalked into her bedroom and slammed the door.

Around half an hour after this event a soft knock at the door announced Tom's rather subdued presence. He waited for conformation that it was ok to enter but after hearing no such sound he pushed open the door anyway and was greeted by the sight of Sam typing feverishly away on a laptop.

"Are you ok?" He asked cautiously, fully aware that one wrong word was probably going to irritate her further.

"Fine. Has Mark arrived yet?" Sam asked in a voice with a distinctly cold undertone.

"No, but he did say he wouldn't be for a couple of hours. What're you doing?" He asked, taking a seat at edge of the bed.

"Stuff." Was the guarded reply.

"What kind of stuff..?" Tom asked while trying to shuffle over and get a look.

All he managed to see before Sam yanked the screen away was an image of a street that Tom didn't recognise.

"Where is that?" He asked, ignoring how irritated she looked once again.

"The street where I grew up. Several houses burned down three years ago and mine was one of them. I remember seeing it on the news." Sam replied as she stared at the photo with the barest hint of a smile playing about her lips.

"Can I get a look?" Tom asked, leaning over once more.

"Ok." Sam said, turning the screen to face them.

The street itself looked quaint, with a row of two story cottage-like houses a and small road running through the middle that looked like it hadn't been repainted in a while. The photo was definitely taken in summer, as the front gardens were in full bloom, roses and sunflowers appeared common. What caught Tom's eye the most was an oak tree with a carving in the trunk on the far left of the photo. It appeared to have the abbreviated phrase 'R.I.P' along with someone's name, but the name wasn't clear enough to read.

"Who's name is that?" Tom asked, pointing at the tree trunk.

"No idea. It's too blurry to read…" Sam said with a small frown on her face.

"Do you think it's anyone you know?"

"I don't think so. Maybe someone died in the fire." She replied as she closed the laptop.

"Yeah you're right. Sam I wanted to apologize, I didn't mean to upset you by taking you to the hospital." Tom said quickly, too afraid she'd interrupt his apology if he slowed down.

"It's fine.. I just.. I don't know. This whole thing is stressing me out!" Sam exclaimed, throwing up her arms in despair after pushing the laptop off of her lap.

"I know." Tom said soothingly, placing what he hoped to be a reassuring hand on her back.

"I wish I could remember everything but there is so much about my own life that's a mystery!" Sam said, placing her head in her hands.

"Like your time in Afganistan?" Tom said as he gently rubbed her back.

"My memory of that is returning… but I only know that because I keep dreaming about something that happened out there. I'm more concerned about what happened to my brother…" Sam mumbled as she closed her eyes.

"You're tired." Tom stated gently.

"I know."

"Try and get some rest for a bit. I'll wake you up when mark gets here." Tom said, remocinv his hand so she could lay down.

"Ok." Sam replied as she curled up like a cat.

"Sleep well." Tom whispered as he walked out.

…

_**I'll try and update more regularly seeing as I aim on getting this story finished by late August/early September, but that depends on how my time goes. I just bought three guinea pigs which has taken my animal total up to nine so I am a little preoccupied! **_


	43. Chapter 43

"Hey Sam!"

Mark's cheery greeting helped to snap Sam out of the sleepy stupor she found herself in, but not quite enough to wake her up fully. Tom had called as soon as Mark had arrived as promised, but had found a pillow being thrown into his face as soon as he poked his head around the door to check she was getting up. Sam was in no mood to entertain guests.

"Hey Mark." She replied sleepily, plastering a fake smile over her face so she didn't seem rude.

"How are you?" He asked seriously as he was led into the living room by Zoe.

"Recovering... I guess." She replied before asking him the same.

After a few minutes of polite conversation while Zoe went and took his cheque out of the safe Mark began sharing details of his life Sam had no doubt heard before but forgotten.

"…Yeah, my girlfriend almost fainted when I told her about the cheque! She was beyond thrilled, and though I didn't show it around her so am I. I can finally buy her an engagement ring fit for the queen she is."

"You're going to propose?" Tom asked with a smile.

"Yep! We've been together for about four years now and I can't bear to think of life without her right by my side… she's the love of my life."

Sam smiled at his words but it was for a more personal reason. She had been thinking about what Zoe said more and more lately, especially the part about how she and Tom were basically made for each other. A part of her wondered whether or not it would be either him or her proposing marriage one day even though they were still both technically single. After a few moment of thinking like this she shook herself and moved over to the kitchen, offering everyone coffee which they gladly accepted as she went. This wasn't the time to get all romantic, if that's what you could call it.

While she switched on the electric kettle and located the coffee Mark and Tom continued their conversation about relationships, and Sam did her best not to listen as Tom spoke about ex girlfriends as the thought made her strangely irritated. Upon returning to the kitchen with three steaming mugs of coffee Sam noticed that Zoe had given Mark his cheque, and he had gone rather pale most likely from shock.

"You alright there Mark?" Tom asked cheerfully.

"Yeah… I just… I don't think this whole thing felt real to me until now." He said, his eyes darting back and forth as he absorbed the amount of zeros that were on the piece of paper.

"I felt the same way." Sam replied as she handed him, Zoe and Tom a cup each.

"You're not having any?" Zoe asked upon noticing her empty hands.

"No I'm good. If I have coffee in the afternoon I never get any sleep." Sam replied with a smile.

"I see you're remembering more and more." Mark noted .

"Yeah, I just wish I realized what I can remember and where the gaps in my memory are." Sam said quietly.

As soon as the words escaped her mouth Sam found a plan of sorts forming in her mind and quickly excused herself from the living room and ran back upstairs into her bedroom. She quickly rummaged around in the bedside table for something to write with and found a thick black marker pen. Without hesitation she walked straight over to the wall opposite her bed and began drawing a line as straight as she could manage from one corner to another. After completing this she stood back a moment to check it really was straight before marking ten small vertical lines onto the horizontal line and then wrote each of the lat ten years at the bottom of the vertical lines. She had formed a timeline of sorts.

Pretty soon there were lines coming of pf the horizontal lines in all directions particularly between 2004 and 2005, and 2011 and 2012. Each was accompanied a small description of what she could remember happening around these times. Some of the examples included graduating university, getting a job, and wrote in very small and somewhat begrudged writing marrying Dylan. She also knew the date that she went out to Afghanistan for the first time and when she came back.

When Tom entered he stared at the wall for a full ten seconds before so much as uttering a word. When the ten seconds was up, however, the questions began.

"So you're making a timeline? He asked in somewhat of a rhetorical manor as he stared at the dates.

"Yeah." Sam replied.

"Good idea." He said, "Do you want any help adding more dates?"

"No thanks. I want to go with what I actually remember instead of what people have told me." Sam said with a small twitch of her mouth as she noticed the irritated expression on his face after seeing Dylan's name.

"Cool. You seem to be missing a lot around 2006…"

"By the looks of it that was when I first went out to Afganistan." Sam said, staring at the same blank patch on the wall that Tom was.

For a while both Sam and Tom went on discussing the timeline, with Tom mentioning some words to see if they jogged any memories. Sam managed to squeeze a couple more details out of her brain before Zoe came in and stared at the wall with her mouth wide open before saying.

"I'm glad that isn't my wall."

…

_**Thanks for reading as always :) **_


	44. Chapter 44

Following Mark's departure and a hasty dinner Sam and Tom retired to bed, leaving Zoe up in the living room to watch a late night movie. Unfortunately for her there only appeared to be horror movies on so as she sat curled in a ball on Sam's not so lumpy couch staring at the 37 inch screen like it was about to eject the monsters that were devouring people into the living room she was consciously aware of the fact that it was very unlikely she was going to get any sleep.

When the movie was finished Zoe turned off the TV and stood up, stretching the cramp out of her left leg with a slight moan before walking slowly over to the kitten and pouring herself a glass of milk and downing it as quickly as possible. This course of action was immediately regretted as she felt the full effects of brain freeze almost instantly, and was left cringing until the effect wore off.

"Er… Zoe? You ok?" Tom asked as he came into the kitchen.

"Oh Tom!" Zoe exclaimed, jumping about a foot in the air.

"Are you alright?" Tom asked once again, staring at her frightened expression with confusion.

"Oh I'm fine! I just watched a horror movie and drank some freezing cold milk which… never mind. Are you thirsty?" Zoe asked, hastily brushing over the subject.

"No but Sam is hungry and too lazy to get out of bed." Tom said with an amused smile.

"Wait... you two are sleeping in the same room?" Zoe asked with her eyebrows raised.

"Well…yeah. She keeps having nightmares and I'm good at calming her down…." Tom said slowly.

"I know about the nightmares, Sam has quite a scream. You should have bought that up in the psychiatrist's office." Zoe said before rolling her eyes as Tom folded his arms and looked away.

"That guy was an idiot." He stated.

"Maybe so but yelling at the guy didn't do any good."

"It made me feel better." Tom said moodily.

"We're not trying to make you feel better; it's Sam that's the focus here." Zoe said pointedly.

"I know, Zoe. I know. I just don't think that guy could have helped her," Tom said sternly, before adding "I need to get her a snack before she comes down here herself and starts moaning about how long I'm taking."

"Of course." Zoe said, steeping aside and allowing Tom access to the kitchen.

The rest of the night Zoe assumed went by quickly for Tom and Sam, as she heard several shouts of laughter as she tried to get comfortable in the spare room. Unfortunately for her it was near on impossible to relax enough to fall asleep when your mind is full of ghastly images form a horror film so by the time morning came around she was in a positively foul mood.

"Shut up." Was the first thing that spilled out of her mouth when she stepped ito the kitchen.

"We didn't say anything." Sam said with a frown.

"I know, it was a pre emptive warning for you to shut it before I blow a gasket." Zoe said moodily.

"I'm not following." Tom stated as he and Sam stared at the bags under Zoe's normally sharp eyes.

"You two spent the entire night giggling and laughing like a pair of love struck teenagers sharing a bed for the first time. The noise you were making combined with the fact I though it was a _wonderful _idea to watch a late night horror movie made it completely impossible for me to fall asleep. So, before you think of saying anything, shut up." Zoe said as she drank from a milk carton.

"Yes ma'am." Sam said as she raised her eyebrows at Tom.

The rest of the morning did no go by swimmingly, for a door to door salesman had the distinct pleasure of enduring Zoe's infuriated shrieks as he tried to sell her an imitation Rolex watch for the same price as the real thing. Following that Tom and Sam has hastily retreated out of the living room and back upstairs, but unfortunately for them had thought it a good idea to leave the door open and so half an hour of laughter and chatting later and they were forced to deal with a disgruntled looking Zoe yelling at them for making too much noise to which Sam replied by timidly handing her a pair of earplugs.

A few hours later and Sam decided to sneak downstairs and check if their plan was working as Zoe was actually asleep, to which she was able to blow out a relieved sigh at the sight of her snoring on the couch with the ear plugs stuffed in her ears.

"Hey Tom! It's safe!" Sam called.

Tom quickly crept down the stairs, holding Sam's jacket as he got his arms through his own. When they were dressed they both stepped towards the front door and quietly opened it before closing it shut behind them.

Out on the street they blew out a sigh of relief.

"Phew." Tom said with a smile.

"Yeah…" Sam said.

After a brief moment of silence where the simply stared at each other waiting for the other person to move, Sam said:

"Is this a date or a staring contest?"

…

_**I'll update again as soon as I can. **_


	45. Chapter 45

Neither Tom nor Sam made any move to hold hands or act remotely affectionate as they travelled down the road to their destination, nor did either of them attempt to break the awkward silence that had settled upon them. Sam sighed. This was beginning to sound like the perfect start to a terrible date.

There was no planning behind this on Tom's part that Sam could see. One moment they had been laughing at a comedy that Tom had found online, the next he was asking her to come with him to his favourite restaurant and she agreed before she had even had a chance to think about what she was agreeing to.

Anyone walking by them right now would have assumed that they were prefect strangers or distant friends, but noting closer than that. The silence between them was starting to sound more deafening to Sam than a 41 gun salute, making her desperate to break it as soon as possible.

"So what restaurant are we going to?" Sam asked in a most carefree tone she could muster.

"You'll see." Tom said with a smile, apparently as grateful as Sam that the awkward silence had been ended.

Sam spent the next couple of minutes or so trying her best to guess what restaurant they were going to, though she only knew so many because she had searched all local restaurants on the internet before they left. Most of the results her search turned up were quite posh or at the very least formal, which was not Sam's thing at all and partly the reason she was pushing to find out before they got there so she could make some excuse to get out before she was stuck at a table with several knives and forks lined up on either side of her plate.

When they finally did turn up at the restaurant to Sam's relief she could tell is was absolutely nothing like she had feared, as 'Old Ken's Beef Jerky' for one did not sound like the name of a restaurant and for another was definitely not a posh restaurant.

When they entered a man at the blue topped kiosk with grey hair and a round face gave Tom a massive wave which he returned whole heartedly. The man, who Sam was assuming to be 'Old Ken', also turned his gaze to her and then back to Tom, waggling his eyebrows at him. Tom sighed and gave Ken a half hearted grin before leading Sam over to a table in the right hand corner of the place by a window as to avoid the punters and smokers, who were rowdily watching a football match on a television screen that could have easily been as old as Sam.

Once they were seated Sam took a moment to look around. The place reminded her somewhat of some vintage Wild West pub, complete with half doors and drunken 50 year olds wearing Stetsons. There were around nine small round pale wooden tables, including the ones Sam and Tom were now sat at, and each came with three of four blue leather and dark wood chairs.

"So what do you think?" Tom asked, shouting over the rowdy punters.

"It's… not at all what I was expecting." Sam replied in a raised voice.

"I'm hoping that's a good thing." Tom said with a nervous smile.

"Well considering every other restaurant in this town looked to be five star and was most likely full of uppity snobs… it's a VERY good thing we're here or I may have lost my mind." Sam said with a grin.

Tom gave her a relieved smile back before saying, "I used to come here a lot when I was a kid. Ken would always give me a discount because he knew my family and when I got older I used to bring my friends here."

"So this place has a lot of history for you. It's nice…" Sam said as her smile drooped slightly.

The only place she used to frequent as a child and teenager was underneath a small oak tree in a park that was only a short walk from her house. She wondered briefly if she had any place as an adult she would go to get away from things, but upon remembering how extremely focussed on the army and her career she appeared to be, she doubted it.

"You ok?" Tom asked.

"Yeah I'm good." Sam said, brightening her features with another grin.

Tom gave her a warm smile back just as Ken hobbled over with a small notebook to take their orders.

"What can I get ya?" He asked with a smile, though Sam could see this was more directed at her than at Tom.

"What have you got?" Tom asked, trying to draw his attention off of her and remind him that he was there.

"Well you've come on the best day M'boy! We've got a wide selection of delicacies that have been fine tuned to my loyal customer's taste buds."

"That's still code for fish and chips with coke and cold turkey sandwiches that taste like chicken, right?" Tom asked with an eyebrow raised.

"Coooorrect!" He replied, sounding like a game show host.

"Wonderful." Tom said, placing a hand on his temple, "I guess I'll have fish and chips then, but please don't drown everything in salt."

"And what will this fine young lady have?" He asked, turning his attention back to Sam.

"I'll have the same." Sam said, trying to ignore the fact she was being checked out by someone who was old enough to be her father.

"Good on ya! I'll be back in a minute, love birds!" He smiled before tearing his eyes off of a body part of Sam's that were a little lower than her eyes and walking away."

"He's…. Nice." Sam said slowly watching him walk away in disbelief.

"Don't take any notice of him. He's been a little desperate since his wife left him a few years ago, I don't think he means anything by it." Tom said a little sadly.

"Ok. Well then I hope he can just tear his eyes off me long enough to cook our meals." Sam said awkwardly as Ken washed up a plate while staring at her as though hypnotised.

"Yeah…" Tom said slowly, following her gaze.

…

_**Sorry about the lack of updates, I've been getting a little stuck with this story lately. **_


	46. Chapter 46

Following a hearty meal of fish and chips, Sam being aware that she probably hadn't eaten anything this fattening since she was a teenager, she turned her attention to Ken. He hadn't stopped staring at her and it was beginning to get more than a little creepy.

"Tom?" Sam hissed across the table out of the corner of her mouth.

"What's up?" Tom asked, finishing the last few chips on his plate.

"Your old friend is still staring at me." Sam replied, jerking her head towards him.

"Is it annoying you?"

"…more like disturbing me." Sam replied with a grimace.

"I'll go talk to him." Tom said, giving her a reassuring smile before standing up.

Sam watched from afar as Ken scratched his bald head awkwardly and gave some kind of explanation that Sam would have been able to hear, though she was not sure she wanted to, if the rowdy table would have died down for a moment. When Tom returned he had an irritated expression on his face.

"What happened?" Sam asked almost immediately.

"Turns out he's staring at you because he recognised your face in the papers. They used a photo of you from your army days back when the hospital first exploded. Ken er… has a thing for strong women." Tom said as he sat back down.

"Translation being he has a thing for me." Sam said flatly before adding, "He's old enough to be my father!"

"Do you want to leave?"

"_Yes." _

…

Following a hasty departure Sam and Tom made for a local park, hoping to catch the sunset from a hill that Tom knew of overlooking most of the city. Tom explained that he came up here a lot when he was a kid also, while apologizing profusely for Ken's creepiness.

When they reached the hill the view was far more beautiful than Tom had described. The high rise buildings in the background had lights in practically in every window which seemed to make the every building glow. As Sam looked around the area closer to where they were standing she could see row upon row of homes which reminded her slightly of the children's dolls houses she always refused to play with, instead opting for the nearest action figure she could get her hands on.

The streets near those houses were empty, but in the distance the unmistakeable sound of car horns and motorbikes near the high rise buildings reminded them that they were not in some quaint little town disconnected from the hustle and bustle of the city, they were in fact in what could be considered the eye of the storm.

With a slight twinge of fear Sam picked out the remains of Holby City Hospital and sighed. A couple of the buildings hadn't been touched by the bomb, but most had suffered some amount of damage. The giant pile of rubble Sam stood on with Jeff and Dixie had been cleared away with nothing but gravel replacing it and there appeared to be some building work going on, as Sam swore she caught a glimpse of a builder's truck driving out of what was the carpark and graffiti lines marking what used to be the ED.

"I forgot you could see the hospital from up here." Tom said sadly, "I'm sorry if it made you feel uncomfortable."

"It's ok…" Sam said distantly.

Something was wrong. She could feel a faint tingling sensation at the back of her head and her vision was blurred around the edges. But that, as Sam soon discovered, was the least of her worries.

_It was cold and Sam was tired. She couldn't sit, her arms were bound to the wall high above her, her legs chained to the ground. She couldn't see anything, she had either gone blind, mad or there was no light in... Wherever she was. _

"_That cross on her uniform means she's a doctor… We'll get a high price for her. What is her name?" A voice asked high above her in a way that made every hair on the back of her neck stand. _

_An eerie beam of light hit her face, and Sam just about made out a figure staring down at her before the light was turned off. She found her mouth forming words without her permission. _

"_You bastard! Face me like a man, coward!" _

"_What is your name?" The man asked in a heavily accented voice. _

"_Go to hell!" Sam yelled before she could stop herself. _

"…_You say the name printed on her uniform was Samantha….. Nicholls? Interesting…" Sam heard him mutter to someone beside him before he turned his attention back to her and said, "I know why you came after me. Anger and pain are a powerful combination of emotions but I am here to tell you that you have wasted your trip. I am not his murderer. I merely work as an underling for the real culprit, and he is far away…"_

_Sam was screaming in frustration, pain, fear and in a vain attempt to extinguish the fiery pit of anger that was burning in her heart. She began writhing and twisting, struggling against her bindings until she broke free… _

"Sam are you ok?" Tom asked, waving a hand in front of her face.

"My brother!" Sam blurted suddenly.

"What?" Tom asked, confused.

"My bother was… that man he…. Never mind I have to go!" Sam yelled, waving Tom away and starting to run back down the hill.

"Sam wait! Go where?"

…

_**Sorry again about the lack of updates, try-to-complete-all-of-my-summer-homework-without- going-crazy week has begun! **_

_**I start school again on Wednesday the 4th so I don't have much time! **_


	47. Chapter 47

As soon as the bus pulled up outside the right stop Sam jumped off and began running as fast as she could down the quiet street that was only a couple of turns away from her house, Tom tearing after her. Their footsteps echoed and the sound ricocheted off of the houses, causing several curtains to twitch as they went by and Sam received more than one disgruntled moan or yell as she shouldered people out of the way, intent on her destination with Tom left uttering quick apologies as he, too, shouldered past.

"Sam I've had an idea about the money-"

"Not now!" Sam snapped, in no mood to listen to ideas about a boat load of money she hadn't even cashed the cheque for.

Sam bypassed the living room where Zoe was still sitting completely, running full pelt up the wooden stairs which made disturbing creaking sounds as she did so, and ran into her bedroom. She dove across her bed and grabbed her laptop, tilting the screen up to her eye line and sitting down with in on her lap.

She completely ignored Tom's questions as he entered the room, the stairs once more making bizarre groaning and creaking sounds as he leapt up them. After noticing her attention was fixated on the screen he took a seat beside her and glanced over her shoulder, coming face to face with Google maps, zooming in on a particular section of Afghanistan.

"Where's that?" He asked in a more gentle tone than he asked all those rushed questions as he finally noticed her stricken expression.

"The area my brother was posted." Sam replied, zooming in further.

"You remember that?" Tom asked with a look of surprise.

"I didn't before I flashed back on the hill." She replied, still desperately searching the terrain for some kind of landmark.

"You flashed back? What did you see?" Tom nearly shouted.

"What's going on?" Zoe asked, emerging up the now screaming stairway, "And what's with those stairs…?"

"Sam flashed back while we were out. She remembers something about her brother." Tom explained when Sam didn't answer.

"What are you looking for?" Zoe asked after standing over Sam and glancing at the laptop screen.

"I'll know when I see it…" Sam said as she narrowed her vision and continued to scan the scenery.

"Ok…." Zoe said, narrowing her eyes also and taking a seat next to Tom.

It took Sam nearly half an hour of meticulous scanning to find what she was looking for, and it was no wonder when she did find it that she went over the same spot about five times without noticing it. The army base her brother was at was so well camouflaged that from this GIS map it looked like it wasn't there, simply a slightly darker patch of sand in the Registan desert. As Sam zoomed in further she was just about able to pick out the outline of the fort, along with several tents and a main building which looked to be built out of stone.

"This is it." Sam said, jabbing the screen triumphantly.

"This is what?" Tom asked, nonplussed.

"This is where I'm heading." Sam replied simply before looking up the earliest flight she could get into Afghanistan.

"Sam slow down!" Zoe exclaimed as she rummaged around her room looking for her credit card.

"Why should I? They could be out there!" Sam shouted back after finding her card in the bedside table and returning to her laptop.

"They? Sam I get that you're worried about your brother since he hasn't made contact but…" Tom began, trying a more tactful approach than Zoe.

"My brother is dead, Tom. They killed him and now I'm going to kill them for what they did to me and to him!" Sam said through gritted teeth.

"Sam-" Began Tom in protest.

"Fine." Zoe said, finally understanding her haste, "But we're coming too."

Sam took one look at each of them, Tom's surprised but determined and concerned eyes and Zoe's harsh and otherwise unreadable expression, and decided not to argue.

"Ugh, fine. But you're paying because I haven't cashed that cheque or worked in months so I'm not made of money. Yet." Sam said as she stood up and stated throwing things into a suitcase.

"And I also hope you realize we're never in a million years going to let you kill someone." Added Tom after quickly rallying round to the idea.

"Try and stop me."

…

A couple of hours later and they were all packed and ready to go, wheeling and bouncing their luggage down the stairs. Zoe took a while longer to pack than Sam and Tom partly because she insisted on meticulously folding every item of clothing while Tom and Sam were happy chucking a few clothes in. When she finally did emerge and started coming down the stairs she was forced to dive for the ground floor as a massive crack resonated around the room and the stairs started to break apart.

"Looks like someone is going to have to stay behind." Sam said matter-of-factly as she assessed the damage.

Tom and Sam both turned to Zoe and her suspected sprained ankle.

"Fine!" Zoe quipped, "But I want you both back in one piece- not in a pine box- you hear me?"

"Got it."

…

_**So I figured I'd write this out instead of spending tonight dreading school…**_

_**Here's a hint about what's going to happen next- Sam meets some old friends and Sam and Tom's relationship takes goes to the next level. **_


	48. Chapter 48

Sam spent most of the flight fidgeting or playing with her phone, trying to rid her mind of the violent thoughts that had suddenly engulfed her consciousness as she boarded the plane. She couldn't stop thinking about that woman, her cold voice informing Sam that her journey was wasted at she was not the one who killed her brother, and wondering what she would have done if she wasn't tied up.

She imagined hacking and slashing at her flesh with a knife, or shooting her at point blank range with a shotgun, the bang echoing around the empty desert. The anger that these images were invoking was filling her up and controlling her thoughts, creating more violent images to feed itself and grow ever stronger, until the taste of revenge was so strong that every pore in her body screamed for this woman and her brother's killer to die.

Tom sat soundlessly beside her, looking at their destination on his laptop with some concern.

"Sam…" Tom began.

"Yeah?" She asked, Tom's voice acting like an anchor and dragging her back to the present.

"Where are we going to get the kinds of supplies needed for surviving in a desert? And how are we going to get to this place? It's in the middle of nowhere."

"We're going to get everything we need, including our destination, from that army base." Sam replied simply, turning to face him with a determined expression that unnerved him slightly.

"Why would they help us? We're civilians." Tom said pointedly.

"They'll help." Sam stated.

"How do you know that?" He asked.

"Because they know me." She replied.

"What? How?" Tom asked, facing her with surprise, "You said you brother was posted out there, not you!"

"I don't remember the details but there's a sergeant out there who knows me. I remember speaking to him; I just don't know what exactly was said…" Sam trailed off, becoming immersed in her thoughts once more.

The distraction from her thoughts was more than welcome, but now that she had returned to them she was left wondering if this was such a good idea. The questions Tom was asking were making her realize how ridiculous her entire plan was, and reminding her of the fact it was based entirely on a few fragmented memories. Where would the go once they got off of the plane? Tom was right, they were about as likely to help them as they were to give weapons to the enemy.

By the time they touched down however Sam's mindset and aims had completely changed. She had been formulating a plan on her way over that was near enough perfect once they had retrieved their belongings and headed towards the exit of one of the shabbiest airports they had ever had the misfortune to set foot in.

A clueless Tom looked less than thrilled as Sam attempted to attract the attention of every car that drove by in sight.

"Sam stop!" He exclaimed, "You have no idea who the hell you're asking for a ride!"

"You're right." Sam said as she turned to him and holding out her hand before saying, "Give me your phone."

"Why?" He asked as she handed it over.

"I want to find out where the nearest hotel is." She replied.

"You think they're going to have a hotel open in a war?"

"There's a reason I chose that flight. This area is one of the least affected by the war, so there is still accommodation for travellers."

"Oh. Right."

"Well it looks like there's one a couple of miles that way." Sam replied, pointing straight across the road and down a hill.

"Better get walking then." Tom replied, hoisting the large backpack of clothing further up his shoulder as they made their way down the road.

As silence once again fell between them the physical effort to maintain focus on walking instead of the violent images that were forcing their way to the forefront of Sam's mind was proving exhausting. The sooner this was all over the better.

The 'hotel' Sam had found was almost as shabby as the airport, with a sandy residue covering the entire building, which appeared to be made of bricks. The windows were tiny and barred, with several of them smashed and the door was a lime green colour.

They both walked cautiously up the building, and poked their heads around the door which revealed a man sitting at what they assumed to be a makeshift reception desk made out a box for a seat and what could have been described as a child's table.

Upon noticing them the man stood up and smiled.

"I'm presuming you're English. Do you understand what I'm saying?" He said slowly.

"Yes. We're looking for a room." Sam said as she and Tom stepped forwards cautiously.

"Fine, fine. Well take your pick. You're the only guests we have at the moment."

Sam nodded and paid the man with the meagre amount of money they had converted at the dodgy looking cash exchange in the airport and upon peeking through several doorways to ensure they didn't choose one of the rooms with a broken window they finally settled upon a small get quaint room with double bed.

"Right… so I'll out a call out to the unit and… Tom?" Sam called upon noticing her was staring out of the window with his backpack still on his shoulders.

"Huh?"

"It's fine. I've got it." Sam said gently eased the pack off of his shoulders before asking, "Are you alright?"

"I think so." He said before turning to face her.

Before Sam could press Tom for answers she found herself being pressed up against the wall, locked in a furious kiss with him.

"What was that?" Sam asked when they finally broke apart for air.

"I have no idea. So you're going to call the unit?" Tom said in a business-as-usual tone.

"Er… Yeah…"

…

_**I was planning on updating last weekend but it turns out my teachers like homework even more this year… I can't say for certain when I'll be updating again as being in year 13 means I have lot more stuff on than just homework to do but I promise I'll do my best to keep up with this story as much as I can. **_


	49. Chapter 49

It took Sam nearly three hours to contact the army base, mostly because she had completely overlooked the fact that she had no memory of what the number was. As it turned out the required number was in the contacts list on her phone under the name 'Sergeant Aston, and she wasted no time calling it as soon as she realized.

While Sam was searching through both her mind and her laptop for some small clue as to what the number could be, Tom spent most of that time trying to avoid her gaze. Sam didn't have to ask why. That kiss was, in her eyes at least, completely out of the blue. Their first date had been mere hours ago, and Sam still didn't remember everything about the last time they dated.

"Hello? Sergeant Aston?" Sam said as soon as someone answered the call.

"Yes… Sam? Is that you?" Asked the man on the other end.

"Yeah. I'm in a hotel a few miles away from your base. We need to talk." Sam said quickly.

"Woah there, slow down! Sam what are you even doing over here? I got a call from a nurse called Linda a while ago about you losing your memory and-"

"Linda called you? So you're the one who gave her my file… Anyway I'm fine. I'm looking for information." Sam said, ignoring the look Tom gave her at hearing her lie.

"I'm presuming this information you're looking for pertains to your brother." He said, his bright tones replaced with a dulcet one.

"Yes, I am." Sam replied firmly.

There was what sounded like a rush of static as Sergeant Aston sighed. It took a moment for him to start talking again, and in that time Sam gave Tom a defiant look to which he responded by shaking his head and looking away.

"Sam… I think this would be an easier conversation to have in person. The investigation has progressed significantly since we last spoke."

"Investigation?"

"I presumed the phrase 'I'm fine' meant you had your memory back… was I mistaken?" He asked.

"Oh no sorry, of course I know what investigation you mean! I was just trying to work out how we we're going to get to the base." Sam said hastily.

"We?"

"I have a friend along with me. A work colleague." Sam replied, glad he didn't pick up on her second lie in as many minutes.

"Oh I see. It-It's good you have someone with you." He said, faltering slightly and then after a brief pause where Sam swore she could hear someone talking in the background he added, "We'll arrange for someone to come pick you up. What's your location?"

After Sam gave him the name of the hotel he said a brief thank you and hung up the phone, leaving her frowning slightly at the hasty good bye before taking her phone away from her ear.

"Exactly how many lies are you planning on telling?" Tom said sternly, making her jump slightly.

"As many as it takes." Sam replied simply, "There will be someone arriving to take us to the base soon."

"Sam I'm not comfortable with this." Tom said, avoiding her gaze.

"Well then you might as well use that plane ticket and run away, because this is more than likely going to get a hell of a lot more dangerous than telling a white lie." She said flatly.

"There is no way I'm leaving you over a thousand miles away from home in a dodgy hotel where you stand a good chance of getting shot." Tom replied, looking up at her with a steely glint in his eyes.

"Then get your bags. We're leaving."

Though she would never admit it, Sam was dreading him saying yes and walking away. As much as she wanted to find out what had happened to her brother she couldn't do it without Tom there with her.

…

"You fool! You could have blown the entire plan with that little slip!" A man with a heavily accented voice said furiously.

"I-I'm sorry!" Sergeant Aston shouted desperately back.

"Well... at least she's coming. You must be ready to greet our esteemed guest and her friend. Any slip-ups like that one and you know what will happen to your family." The man said flatly before turning away and walking towards the door.

"Wait!" Aston shouted again, "S-she'll know something's wrong if I turn up looking like this!"

Aston jangled the chain that was binding him to the interview chair.

"…Very well. I will get one of my people to fetch you one of your... uniforms." He replied.

Aston watched him shut the door and let out a moan of despair. Barely a week ago he was the leader of one of the most elite army bases in Afghanistan, and now he was bound to the chair of his own interview room taking orders from the enemy.

Thanks to Aston, over half the men in his unit were killed in a silent takeover. Thanks to him and his paranoia his security systems were now working against him, preventing anyone from finding out whom exactly is in charge.

Thanks to him, Sam Nicholls was going to die.

…

_**Dun dun dun…. **_

_**I had a free Wednesday so I thought I'd update. I have a mountain of homework (literally) to do over the next couple of weeks so I don't know when the next update will be. **_


End file.
